Just like any market, there are always areas that are undervalued and overvalued, changing over time. One recent trend is picking up European free agents already in the prime of their careers – Parker, Garabajosa, etc. So far, they’ve proven to be much better deals than American free agents, say, Jared Jeffries and just about every other mid-level exception signing in the NBA.

Which sort of brings me to Kevin’s comment. He hints at a real weakness for Isaiah – he has no concept whatsoever of the value he’s offering to other teams. He’s a good talent evaluator, but again and again fails to press an advantage, to use his leverage in a negotiation. I actually think deals like the Rose/Lee trade are a good way to use our only advantage (the ability to afford $$). Without that trade, for example, we wouldn’t have the best player on the team and we’d be the Layden Knicks. But over the long-haul, if you never find a bargain, you end up with expensive assets thatno one else wants.

A few examples:
- As many posters have pointed out, our deals with Phoenix and Toronto basically saved the franchises. One level, the deals were ok – we paid a lot of $$ and got good draft picks. But those teams would have been willing to give up much more, just to get the salary relief.

- The Bulls wouldn’t have matched a $25 million offer to Jamal Crawford, much less $50 million.

- After the heart fiasco, the Bulls had no hope of re-signing Eddy Curry after 2006. He would have walked. The Bulls were desperate; if Isaiah didn’t want to wait, he could have made the trade for one protected draft pick, much less two unprotected picks.

- If he wanted to take a flyer on Jerome James… ok. But that deal could have been done for $10 million, tops.

- He got spooked into taking Balkman by a rumor at last year’s draft (that the Suns were going to grab him). It worked out ok, bc Balkman is easily worth a #20 or better, but we probably could have had him at 29 and grabbed someone like Rondo or Marcus Williams at 20 – then traded the pick for a real asset, not Mardy Collins (don’t get me started).

The man does NOT drive a hard bargain.

That doesn’t necessarily mean they’re caught up: there seems to be far more variation in the success rates of European prospects relative to where they?re selected compared to U.S. prospects (could be wrong and have no statistical evidence to back this up). This is probably due in part to a lack of statistics or playing time for young players (just like high schoolers), but some of these guys play heavy minutes on club and national teams so I think it’s also because a lot of teams aren’t looking for the right things: overvaluing athleticism/?potential? and undervaluing basketball skills (again, like with high schoolers).

This kind of leads into the point I was trying to make, which was NOT that the ?European? style in general is better than the American style in general. (I live in Europe and am, in fact, not a fan of European basketball because they seem to have mistaken it for soccer the way they run around like chickens with their heads cut off.) Just that the teams who are doing a good job of scouting and selecting European, or foreign, players (Sacramento a few years ago, Dallas, San Antonio, Phoenix, and maybe now Toronto) are not only succeeding because they are drawing from a larger pool of raw ?talent? and athleticism. They are also succeeding because their North American, South American, African, European, Asian, even Australian players tend to play better, “team-oriented” if you will, basketball on both sides of the ball. This is not ?European? basketball, it?s just basketball.

I am not totally pleased with one of my answers, basically it wasn’t complete. While we can say its Dolan’s money so why do I care, part of the answer is because the Dolan’s didn’t get where they are by throwing away millions. The other point, that the $15 MM for Rose meant a lot to another team. A lot of the money saved went to Bosh.

Ted,

I am not sure I follow everything you said – like how the Knicks got Dwight Howard. But basically, there was another way which required patience.

In the actual Billy Beane/Moneyball version, once everyone in the league started valuing On-Base Percentage and Slugging Percentage, Beane started found good “value” in outfield defense and relief pitchers. It wasn’t the particular skill that was important – it was identifying something that no one else was paying attention to.

As the examples of Billy Beane and high-school ballers show, professional organizations don’t take long to catch up. So what’s the next place to look? I don’t know. Africa? South America? Isaiah seems to have done well with college seniors, who as a group may have been undervalued the past few years.

2. If the Knicks are paying $140 million (something more like $220 million after the luxury tax) for this roster I?m not sure they would have a problem resigning guys like Chris Paul, Brandon Roy, Dwight Howard/Lu Deng to big extensions.

3. As you point out, Hudson River, it?s probably not a coincidence that the best teams are produced by the organizations with the best understanding and utilization of European basketball. The expanded pool of talent from which they?re drawing is one factor, but I think this is just one indicator of superior management. These teams are also the teams interested in playing a more fundamentally sound, team-oriented style rather than the me-first, dribble all over the court, isolate a 40% shooter like Jamal Crawford, don?t try on defense style personified by the Knicks.

Anthony Parker could be seen as an example of this: he?s an American former first round pick who went to Europe after failing to stick in the league, improved his game, and came back to the league to find much greater success than the first time around. The Raptors didn?t discover some hidden European talent, and Jamal Crawford probably has more athleticism and ?talent? in his pinky than Parker has overall. However, Toronto?s success shows that ?less talented? or less athletic guys who fill roles and play as a team are more valuable than, well, the guys the Knicks have.
Brian Colangelo recently made a comment about how the entire organizational culture needed to be changed when he got to Toronto, that seems to be true for the Knicks more so than for any other team in the league.

Chris Paul
Brandon Roy
Ariza or maybe a Peja, Al Harrington, or Gerald Wallce type free agent
Dwight Howard
Joakim Noah/ Roy Hibbert/ Hasheem Thabeet/ whoever ”

Thats a very, very, very best case scenario. But unfounrtunatly because of salary that team would implode. In free agency: Paul would get a max deal, Roy would get something along the lines of 12 Mill a year, Dwight would get a max deal, and whatever center you fill in there would get a deal similar to Brandon Roy, unless it was Joakim Noah who is going to be a slightly more talented Jerome Williams. I do agree keeping guys like Udoka, and Barnes would be good ideas, rather than giving Jared Jefferies 30 Mill, we stay conservitive and Give Udoka 3 year deals worth 6 Million.

Isiah’s main downfall with the rebuilding process is not paying Jerome James and Jared Jefferies 6 Million a year, its signing them to 5-6 year deals. If he had paid them 8 million a year for two years, it wouldn’t put us in this disatrious position. We MUST set a year at which we want to get under the cap like the lakers have done. For example, if we were to say 2010 make sure many of our contracts expire that year, giving us the option to re-sign players or get free agents that year. We could also sign cheap talented european players trying to make it to the league (see Anothony Parker, Raptors) to give us flexablility for the following year(s). From that point we should never stray too far from the salary cap, just like the Spurs or Mavericks.

Going back to the Anthony Parker signing by the Raptors, the Knicks must start looking abroad for talent. The 4 teams with the most foreign players are: The Suns, Mavericks, Spurs, and Raptors. The Raptors had an outragous turnaround this year, and in a couple years Brain Colangelo will turn that team around. The Knicks need to infuse foreign players, rather than trying to get the next American phenom. Isiah was looking for the next big time scorer when he aquired Jamal Crawford, Channing Frye, Nate Robinson, Eddy Curry, Quentin Richardson etc… If he used a couple of these guys and complimented them with European players, or as Bill Walton would say “Basketball Players who don’t play positions”, the Knicks could’ve lowered cap and improved play. Then again its not that easy, he would have to find good players rather than signing a few Bruno Sundovs.

This is an interesting discussion and you guys both make some good points.

Isiah?s ?rebuilding plan? (which I was foolish enough to believe might work) was based on three things: strong drafting, using Dolan?s deep pockets to ?buy? talent, and bringing in young veterans who possessed great individual talent but no understanding on basketball as a team game who Isiah thought were underrated by others and he could turn around. He?s been successful in only one aspect: drafting.

If you?re at $70 mill for the next few years and have a chance to sign someone you like for the MLE the ?we?re over the cap anyway? line of thinking makes some sense. But Isiah hasn?t stopped at $5 million extra, $10 million extra, but more like $109 million extra (subtracting Houston and Anderson from the payroll to account for all salaries added on Isiah?s watch). The difference between $70 mill and $140 mill is pretty huge and I can?t imagine that it doesn?t negatively affect the franchise. If in no other way, at least because the team is losing, the players are underachieving, and, therefore, their trade values are squat.

Of course, I think part of the problem was also that Isiah really believed he was adding quality players, and Dolan?s man-crush on Isiah which leads to his blind faith is also troubling.

This also relates to the previous discussion about Isiah the “convict whisperer:” he thought either that as a group his overpaid underachievers would have enough talent to flourish or that under his guidance they would blossom into great team players with some semblance of basketball IQ and a team-first attitude. Isiah is definitely a “players” coach and executive, and has shown an impressive talent for developing young players (O’Neal, Harrington, Bender to some extent, Artest, Curry, Lee, etc.) and focusing/motivating players with bad attitudes (Artest/Curry).
Unfortunately, at this point Isiah has wasted tens, even hundreds of millions of dollars either because he’s not as good as he thought, or more likely because it is not possible to take a bunch of me-first players who have little or no understanding of team basketball (Curry, Crawford, Tim Thomas, Marbury, Jerome James, Jalen Rose, Steve Francis) throw in some young talent and have a good NBA team.

I know this is neither revolutionary nor productive thinking, but just to demonstrate the complete lack of success of Isiah’s plan, imagine if the Knicks had gone with a traditional rebuilding plan: assuming a conservative 8th or 9th pick since 2003 (probably would have been far higher), Isiah takes one of the top 2 or 3 guys available every time (b/c I really think he?s that good), the team focuses almost exclusively on the draft, letting contracts expire and replacing them with Jackie Butler, Ime Udoka, Matt Barnes, and Qyntel Woods types. Us fans might have suffered through at least one year of a Frank Williams/ Howard Eisley, Shandon Anderson, Qyntel Woods (or similar), Sweets/Othella, and Dike type starting 5, but we’re looking at something from

Billups
Igoudala
Gay or Shane Battier
Noah
Frye

To, in the best case,

Chris Paul
Brandon Roy
Ariza or maybe a Peja, Al Harrington, or Gerald Wallce type free agent
Dwight Howard
Joakim Noah/ Roy Hibbert/ Hasheem Thabeet/ whoever

as our starting line-up for next year. With a bench of Ariza, Udoka, Barnes, Butler, maybe a 2007 free agent like DeSagana Diop, and a couple 2nd rounders coming off the bench.

Of course, this is very speculative. For more concrete evidence of Isiah?s complete failure as an executive, consider that 7 teams have improved by 14 or more wins since Isiah?s been in NY (03/04-06/07). None of those teams were playoff teams in 03-04 and all but one (the 9th place Clippers) were playoff teams in 06-07. The Knicks won 6 less games in 06-07 than in 03-04. In fact, in case anyone needs to be reminded, this year?s Knicks won 4 less games than in Layden?s last full season (02-03).

I spent a lot of time promoting Isiah?s past success in Toronto and Indiana on this very site and telling people to give him a chance: give him 3 years. At this point he?s had his chance and I think it?s time to give Jerry West, Kiki Vandeweghe, or some unknown from a strong front office like Dallas, San Antonio, or Phoenix a chance.

Simply we don’t know and having our owner throw away money is a bad business decision.

Since Rose expires significantly before we can get under the cap this cost only matters to Dolan, as does any discussion of luxury tax. I do not care about Rose’s contract if I don’t have to pay it.

http://realgm.com/src_wiretap_archives/45743/20070421/clyde_id_like_to_tutor_mardy_collins/