Teams play combo-guards/score-first PGs with plenty of success. Of course, D’Antoni’s system has come to be designed around a traditional PG… I wonder if/how that would change if the Knicks manage to land a LeBron, Wade, or even Joe Johnson.

Memphis is winning on offense: they’re the 8th offense and 24th defense according to Basketball-Reference. They’ve got at least a decent scorer at every spot. Good inside outside balance, and apparently playing hard within the system. Z-Bo may be their top producer, but I think Gasol is just as valuable/productive.

Droidz1979,

The goal was to create cap flexibility and assemble a decent team in the meantime, in this context I think signing Kidd, Miller, or Sessions to a long-term contract would have been a failure. I wouldn’t necessarily have been against getting any of those guys, but given Walsh’s goals it didn’t make sense. Kidd and Miller both got more money than the Knicks could give them anyway from better teams, so Sessions is likely the only one the Knicks actually passed up.

Z,

The Knicks haven’t, but most other teams have. It’s not that the Knicks didn’t have the opportunity to add a PG cheap. In 2006 alone they passed on Rondo, Farmar, Lowry, Shannon Brown, and Sergio Rodriguez, and Boobie Gibson. They took Chandler over Brooks, Nichols over Sessions. Jack, Ellis, Lou Williams, Mo Williams (at 39, not 9), Earl Watson, Jaric, Ginobili, Alston, Derek Fisher… they’re had their chances. This year they passed on Jennings and Lawson. That was in the lottery, but my point is just that guys between 5-10 and 6-4 who are passable-to-good NBA PGs basically grow on trees.

I don’t know exactly what you mean by, “One man’s Darrell Armstrong is another man’s Corey Gaines.” They are not particularly comparable: http://www.basketball-reference.com/play-index/pcm_finder.cgi?request=1&sum=1&p1=armstda01&y1=2008&p2=gaineco01&y2=1995 Armstrong played more games in a single season than Gaines did in his career, four different times.

Ted– I’d be more apt to agree with this, except the Knicks HAVEN’T been able to find a passable starting PG on the cheap, other than Charlie Ward, at all in the last 17 years. And not for lack of trying: (Mardy Collins, Jared Jordan, Frank Williams, Milos Vujanic, etc…). One man’s Darrell Armstrong is another man’s Corey Gaines.

Droidz–

“Z-Bo has Gasol and Gay around him to compensate for his defensive liabilities”

Admittedly, I don’t think I’ve ever seen Memphis play. Not once, ever. Even when they have played the Knicks. But I know Gay’s reputation is that he is a horrible defensive player. Basically the Zach Randolph of swingmen.

But your other points about Randolph are good. Playing next to a defensive center is key for Randolph. And it was never that Randolph didn’t produce. It was that the bang for the buck you got from him was not great (and it was an obvious mistake to bring him to NY in the first place).

Memphis is a perfect place for Randolph to play. A guy who is impossible to root for should have no problem playing for a team that has no fans.

Besides, he had a ridicolously fat and long contract that killed the team’s flexibility to upgrade or fix itself from the mess that it was into. This applies to Marbury, Jerome James and the rest of the crew that donned the blue and orange jersey under Zeke.

At least we got to see the likes of Gallo, Lee and Chandler improve their game and see flashes of potential for Hill and Douglas. Still, i would love for the Knicks to trade for a decent PG before the trading deadline to salvage the rest of the season while not losing the young ones and hopefully get future draft picks along the way. Expiring contracts like Hughes or Harrington might still be worth something for other teams who will be cost cutting or upgrading for the playoffs. There are just too many teams that has the cap space for 2010 that it might be too much to assume that we could get all the max. free agents that are supposed to be available.

Still, i dream of the Knicks getting Lebron and getting the rights for Rubio..i know it might be asking for too much but one could always dream after all the crap the Knicks has been into the past years =)

… can I ask one of the statheads who post regularly on this site to explain to me how the Grizzlies have been so successful so far this year, and in the Western Conf. at that, w/ our hated Z-Bo as their top producer?