It’s Isiah’s execution. If he had taken on all the contracts in the world and still put together a winning team, a playoff team then who cares. It might not have been the best strategy in the world, but we’d be winning now and probably have a good chance of continuing to win given Isiah’s drafting.

In reality, the Knicks have averaged 29.7 wins over the past three years. You can’t tell me we couldn’t have won close to 30 games a year with Kurt Thomas, Othella Harrington, KVH, McDyess (or a reasonable contract Isiah could have gotten back for his expiring deal), some Isiah draft picks, and some inexpensive free agents.

Obviously we can’t say we would have gotten LeBron or Billups or Ben Wallace as a free agent, or we would have won the lottery, or we would have been able to trade for player x, but as Z points out these would have all been realistic possibilities.

Isiah inherited a bad situation from Layden (iyamwutiam said it and no one disputes it). Had Isiah let it bleed from 2003 until now (essentially not made any moves at all) the team would now be under the cap and able to sign any free agents. (I don’t have the numbers for sure, but I think it would have taken until this year for Houston’s contract to expire, officially ending the Layden era and putting us substantially under).

So by letting it bleed we would have still missed signing Kobe and Nash in 2004, so they were unattainable. And judging by the current class of free agents, one could argue that had we been under the cap we probably would have signed Rashad Lewis to a max deal (probably not the best move).

However, had the Knicks made it a point to shed salary and “let it bleed”, I suspect that Lebron may not have signed his extension in Cleveland when he did, instead opting to “test the waters” in 2007. That would be now.

When he extended with the Cavs, there was no reason to wait because the biggest market team had no chance of bidding for him. He said all the right things at the time (“I love Cleveland”, “I never want to leave”) but let’s face it. The NBA needs LeBron in NY. NY needs LeBron in NY. LeBron’s wallet needs Lebron in NY.

Not coincidentally, it wasn’t just James that signed extensions in 2006. That whole class could have been free agents (Wade, Bosh, Anthony…). If the spectre of New York having cap room hung over the league, this years free agent class would have looked a lot hotter than just Rashad Lewis and Chauncy Billups (Darko was the only top 5 pick from that year not to resign early). Like 2000 when Duncan, G. Hill, and McGrady were all free agents, this summer could have been rich in star caliber players.

Had Isiah told Dolan he was doing it his way and “Let it Bleed” this summer would be transpiring a lot differently. Isiah probably wouldn’t have many less wins under his belt as GM that he has now; he’d have his lottery picks from the past few years; and he’d have a great pool of free agents to choose from.

It could have been the summer of LeBron.

As it is, it’s the summer of Zach Randolph…

1) Spending the cash, in and of itself. As a fan, it’s not my problem. But the others are important, because they affect cap and roster flexibility.

2) Size of the contract

3) length of the contract

For a team that’s substantially over the cap, I’d say that as long as the owner is willing to sign the checks, the size of a contract barely matters. You can almost always trade a big contract for another, longer – contract. Even Steve Francis was tradeable, in the end.

Malik Rose’s contract wasn’t exactly short, as you point out, but he didn’t affect our cap flexibility at all. With Marbury and the rest, the 2008-2009 payroll was already going to be in the $100 million range.

There are probably only 2 or 3 teams, at most, for which it’s relevant – everyone else either literally can’t afford those mega payrolls, or are close enough to the cap limit that one or two contracts makes the difference of being over or under.

Caleb– I think we’ve exchanged discussions about these trades in the past, and I understand the theory behind the trades now (picks), while stubbornly rejecting the execution. Malik Rose was not a short contract (when he expires he will have been a Knick for over 4 years (more than half his contract length).

All that asside, the above example is with regard to Iyamwutiam’s “context” of the Knicks situation. I could use better examples that don’t carry the baggage that Knick followers associate to these trades, but I often resort to Knick examples simply because they are the ones always on my mind.

You could use the same strategy with Marbury. If his knees don’t collapse, he’ll have a lot of trade trade value NEXT season, when his contract expires. We’re capped out anyway – we might be able to trade him for a big-ticket player whose deal expires in 2010 or 2011, or an overpaid vet packaged with a really good young prospect.

The bigger risks are the long-term deals, like Zach Randolph. That move pushed us back from having cap flexibility (whether for taking on salary in trades, or outright FA signings) in 2010 – to the summer of 2011. Is he worth it? We’ll see.

Before that, it was the signings of James & Jeffries, not to mention Curry. Without two of those moves, we would have had flexibility in the summer of 2009.

Having a star on your team DOES increase road attendance, but that’s pretty much irrelevant to the owner.

In practice, it’s a fallacy to think you need a big name to draw fans. That’s why the Lakers are idiots for not trading Kobe – they’re barely a .500 team WITH him, and could easily be much better in a couple of years if they took some of the trade offers that were on the table.

In NYK, we have no superstar player and no hope of getting one. But that’s irrelevant. If the team is successful in wins and losses, fans will be happy and Dolan will make $$$. The insulting thing about the Layden years is that “success” was so watered down. He put together a roster with only one goal – the short-term goal of making it into the first round of the playoffs.

Isaiah may not be a good negotiator, his approach may be confused at times, but at least he thinks big. He has an eye for talent and has made it a priority to find young players with high potential. He may fall short but at least he’s trying. Layden would have been happy with a 45-win team. He was the worst NBA GM of the last 15 years… worse than McHale, worse than Rob Babcock, worse than anyone.

iyamwutiam- I disagree with your point about not being able to rebuild through the draft in NY. I agreed when Isiah first took over, but three and a half years later I think it’s a silly fallacy. In my opinion, winning is what sells tickets. Maybe ticket sales will drop slightly when people anticipate a rebuilding project (the Knicks used to have like a 7 year waiting list for season tickets, so I don’t know how much of a problem that really was), but as soon as they see the team winning it won’t matter.

If you want to use the Bulls as an example:

You shouldn’t rebuild period in the post-championships Baby Bulls style. This rebuilding plan included drafting the highest “ceiling” guy available, building around 2 young bigs who were years and years away (neither of whom has developed into a complete basketball player to date) and an expensive, overrated veteran on the decline in Jalen Rose. As Danny Ainge has found out in Boston, raw young players and aging vets are not an ideal combination. Like Ainge, Jerry Krause tended to trade away his best young players (Brand, Artest, and Brad Miller for the Bulls; the picks that resulted in Roy and Jeff Green for the Celts) while keeping the rawest ones.

The John Paxson Bulls style of rebuilding, on the other hand, would work fine in NY. He’s primarily drafted smart players who have already proven that they can play on the college level and put together a 47 win team by his second season the first of three straight playoff appearances (the Bulls had missed 5 straight playoffs, I believe, before he arrived). HE’S BUILT A TEAM RATHER THAN ASSEMBLED TALENT.
The Knicks have spent probably about 4 times as much as the Bulls on players’ salaries over the last three years and won an average of 16 games less per season (regular season only), not even sniffing the playoffs for 3 years.
So I guess the question then is whether people are more inclined to go to the Garden or turn on MSG or buy a Knicks jersey when the team is filled with overpaid semi-stars or hard working young players who win 54% more games?

Furthermore, while I have no numbers in front of me, I don’t think that Bulls’ fans were very happy with the post-championship plan/results either. Chicago is a huge market, and, anyway, it’s not like in small markets they love to pay to watch their team lose anyway.

“4. in the next two years – people like James, Marbury, Q will be gone -leaving salary cap room… Since Dolan had let Layden run over the cap to close to 100M – I don?t seeing him getting squeamish aout signing a TRUE superstar if it is ?actually? possible.”

Without looking at the numbers, I can all but garauntee that Isiah Thomas had a higher payroll last year than Layden ever had.
Everytime the Knicks could potentially get close to or under the cap in 2 years or so Isiah pulls a Marbury/Penny, Francis, Malik Rose, Mo Taylor, Jalen Rose, Zach Randolph aquisition. I’m not really sure why I’m wasting my time pointing this out, but to sign a free agent to something over the MLE you either have to be under the cap or pull a sign and trade. SO explain to me again how the Knicks are going to get LeBron James by consistantly trading shorter deals for longer ones??????

In the “context” Isiah could have let contracts expire, drafted well, made a few smart trades, and I have little doubt that he could have won 33 games last year and been in a much better position, whether in terms of cap room/flexibility or potential.

I’m going over all these points because I once felt the same way you do, but if you can’t see that Isiah has not done a very good job over the last three plus years–that many, many GMs have gotten better results at a fraction of the price–then I don’t know what to say to you. If the best you can say about Isiah is that he’s done a better job than Layden you’re basically damning with faint praise.

Seriously, though, I’m not sure that the assumptions you are making are well based. I think we exchanged posts earlier this week, in which I stated where I disagree with you, so I won’t repeat them again except to say that I think we may be interpreting the salary cap and its management differently.

“signing any player of merit in the NBA involves risk particularly because large salaries are involved.”

Absolutely true; however, the risk is usually in the form of overpaying a player several years down the road for their productive years early in a contract. This has to be done based on demand, and everybody does it. The CBA allows players a raise every year, despite the fact that those years typically see a downslide in production. The problem with Isiah’s moves is he has brought in the players on the downslide of their escalating contracts. Jalen Rose was once worth $17 million; Francis was too; Malik Rose was worth $8 million. But to the people who signed them to the contracts, not to the Knicks. Isiah didn’t just take a risk by signing players that could be busts. He took on other GM’s risks after the players had already gone bust.

Ted – I think the point I was trying to make was the context of being saddled with a very large salary cap situation and being a large market team which would not tolerate a Chicago approach (of building thru the draft and trading your best players (Elton Brand) with the goal of primarily staying under the cap while rebuilding) was not an approach that owners like Jim Jones, Dolan, Steinbrenner would be happy with pursuing. Because the revenues of the Ny teams is substantially augmented by the YES and MSG networks -as well as the larger population which brings in more revenue tru ticket sales and particularly merchandising.

Due to these factors – the purist approach of building via the draft can not be pursued. There is a prioritization mandated by ownership (the boss) which asks the GM to pursue both courses (draft for the future, fill the seats and generate interest now). Therefore the approach to examining this team SHOULD look at the context which includes the undoubtedly largest salary cap ever left behind by any GM (Layden). In additon – signing any player of merit in the NBA involves risk particularly because large salaries are involved – see Indiana in partcular with Marquis Daniels, Troy Murphy and Dunleavy-for a short refresher :)

I do not dispute that there appears to be an impulsive and rather manc approach by Isiah- whether that is his personality or caused by being placed in a difficult situation is harder to assess. However- it can be established that the Francis pick up was indeed done with the intention of bolstering bargaining position for possible future trades. An all star point guard (even in decline -see Sam Cassell) can be a valuable addition to any team that is already or on the cusp of acheiving the playoffs.

The fact that like all sports – the playoffs has been expanded to include more teams only increases the probability that someone may be interested in the player. Last year – I do think that of all teams – Phoenix and Houston would have benefitted seriously with the addition of Francis. It was painfully obvious to see that with out Nash causing concern – Phoenix quickly morphed into a hesitant perimeter team -depite years of D’Antoni implementing his system. Houston – was actually up in the series and questionable fouls as well as the inabiity to find a scorer outside of McGrady and Yao ruined a great opportunity to get to the second round. The interest in Francis was legitimate in the off-season and a large salary though constraining in a trade is not an insurmountable obstacle as we saw.

Regardless I am not going to belabor individual moves. Rather there are certain facts/trends that have occured:
1. The cap is down to a stable number at 20-18M as clarified by my post.
2. The addition of Eddie Curry -on the whole is an improvement for the Knicks and with all his flaws – he has proved to be a valuable addition.
3. There is certainly going to be a transition from the fill the seats team to building a perrenial contender – as the draft picks – particularly Lee and Balkman – have started to be contributors where serious thought has to be given on whether or not they should be starting. In additon – Nichols, Collins,Robinson and Chandler all are capable of developing into solid contributors.
4. in the next two years – people like James, Marbury, Q will be gone -leaving salary cap room.

As stated earlier there is still not one legitimiate all star on this team with the exception of Marbury. Next year will be the year that someone will get one of the three or four top flight free agents out there (KG/KOBE/Le BRon). Since Dolan had let Layden run over the cap to close to 100M – I don’t seeing him getting squeamish aout signing a TRUE superstar if it is ‘actually’ possible.

This off-season shows that getting an all-star is difficult particularly franchise players such as Kobe and KG. Iverson would not have been welcome to NY at the time and I can’t think of any other legitimate superstar talent that has been signed to a team in the last 3-4 years. So its just not that easy to get someone like an A Rod in basketball- regardless of the cap.

So in short – the context was difficult – particularly with the onerous guaranteed contract burden of close to 100M which IT INHERITED as part of taking the job. Also in my view I think the knicks have better players and better potential than the previous teams.

As far as I know the MLE is not luxury tax exempt. It is only an exception in the sense that capped out teams can still add free agents. Really, it helps veteran free agents to get a decent, often above reasonable market value, contracts in a league where the majority of teams are at or over the cap.
The Suns traded Kurt Thomas for a trade exception, not a mid-level exception. The trade exception allowed Seattle to take on a contract without following the rule of only taking back 125% of what you give up in a trade: Seattle gave up $0 (I believe) in terms of contracts and took back Thomas’$8 mill, whereas they usually would have had to give the Suns contracts totaling about $6.4 to get KT. The Suns were able to erase KT’s contract by giving up, I think, 2 1sts for a 2nd.

The only numbers I see listed on Hoopshype are for the upcoming 2007/8 season, unless I’m missing a link to last year’s numbers they’ve already been taken down.

It’s very hard to say whether the Bulls actually wanted to resign Curry. There are obviously a lot of variables in play, especially his contract being uninsurable.

You’ll get no argument that Curry is an efficent post player. The problem is that he is such a bad passer/team player on offense, and help defender, that I don’t think it’s worth it to build your team in an attempt to cover up his weaknesses to expoit his one strength.
He is such an incredibly efficient scorer that maybe you can argue that you should surround him with the passers, defenders, rebounders (which the Knicks clearly have), and shooters (which the Knicks more or less have) to get the most out of Curry. I just don’t think the Knicks have done anything close to this.
Currently, the Knicks are trying to make Curry the focal point of their offense. This is essentially the equivalent of the Suns posting up Amare every time down the court, standing around and waiting for him to chuck is back out. Instead of doing this the Suns choose to let guys like Steve Nash, Leandrinho, and Boris Diaw (and now Grant Hill) create the offense and Amare gets mostly quick, high efficiency looks at the basket. I’d say that Curry could be a more dangerous half-court player than Amare, but only if the Knicks had something resembling a 21st century offense (rather than a recreation of the mid 90s Knicks offense, which wasn’t much more efficient than the current Knicks’ O just played leaeague leading D).

So I guess my problem is more with the way the Knciks use Curry than Curry himself.

If you want to look at context how about the fact that the Knicks won 4 less games last season than Layden’s last year. Zeke has made a lot of moves, and spent probably more money than any GM in history, and the Knicks have gotten worse.

In contrast, only 3 of 9 teams (Atlanta, LAC, and Mem) that finished the 2002-2003 (Layden’s last full season) season tied with (Washington) or behind the Knicks and didn’t make last year’s playoffs.