milt: I don’t think that’s a fair assessment. On a team with no reliable scoring options, Williams had to take on a ridiculous offensive load for a PG – 30.1% of possessions.

His shooting suffered quite a bit, but he still passed the ball just as well and, crucially, his turnovers didn’t budge at all. That’s an elite player right there.

??

max fisher-cohen: I can forgive this current management for deluding itself into thinking this team can win a title since rebuilds are such a drag, and we’re not THAT far off (if we could split Melo and STAT via trade and not sacrifice total talent, I think we’d be a long shot — the type of long shot that wins a title once ever 20 years or so),

I agree that we are probably short of true contender status (ie OKC, SA, probably Lakers now, and Miami) but I don’t think we’re that far off. All it takes is 1-2 reasonable “ifs” to come true and I think we’re there. If Lin comes and is 90% of the Linsanity Lin. If JR continues his maturing and focuses on both ends of the floor. I don’t think it’s really a question anymore whether Amare and Melo will buy in at the defensive end – they really brought it after Woodson came on board.

And I am still not convinced that STAT and Melo can’t work together. I posted it a couple threads ago, but all the hemming and hawing about Amare falling apart just doesn’t really seem to be true if you look at the numbers. He shot 70% at the rim, which is basically on par with his best PHX years. his FTR is basically the same as it was last year – down from PHX but that is likely because he hasn’t had a real PG for any amount of time giving him the ball where he needs it in close. His drop in efficiency can basically be completely accounted for by his extremely horrible jumpshooting – he has shot ~40% and ~44% from 10-15 and 16-23 ft respectively for his career, and shot 32 and 35% last year from those places. If you do the math on that – if he just shot his career averages from those distances, his TS would have been 60, he would have averaged ~21.5 p/36 (not so different from some years in PHX, especially considering lower usage), and no one would be talking about how he and Melo can’t play together.

ruruland: Yes, Deron Williams has been absolutely brilliant with NJ — pure winner. And he was a vastly superior player in Utah to Amare Stoudemire and Carmelo Anthony.

Obviously the flex offense and having ideal flex and pnr players like Milsap and Boozer had absolutely zero to do with Williams success.

I mean, he has a career WS/48 less than Stat and 5 points higher than Melo — totally different stratosphere.

It’s not Amar’e I’m talking about when I put “star” in quotes. It’s starbury, curry, randolph, McDyess, etc. All of whom, I think you’d agree, are not in the same class as Deron Williams (or Amar’e circa 2010, or Melo). I can forgive this current management for deluding itself into thinking this team can win a title since rebuilds are such a drag, and we’re not THAT far off (if we could split Melo and STAT via trade and not sacrifice total talent, I think we’d be a long shot — the type of long shot that wins a title once ever 20 years or so), but the Knick teams of the last decade were built ala the current Nets. Just desperation move after desperation move.

Unicaja – Real

JK47: Seriously, Deron has been really mediocre since joining the Nets,

I don’t think that’s a fair assessment. On a team with no reliable scoring options, Williams had to take on a ridiculous offensive load for a PG – 30.1% of possessions.

His shooting suffered quite a bit, but he still passed the ball just as well and, crucially, his turnovers didn’t budge at all. That’s an elite player right there.

Brian Cronin:
The problem with getting Paul is that the Knicks won’t be able to acquire him directly next season. At the very least, a third team with cap room will have to trade for him and then trade him to the Knicks. As we have all seen from the last week or so, trades with three or more teams (especially those that end up with a mega-star playing in a big city) are extremely hard to put together. In addition, I don’t even know if the three-team sign and trade thing would even be allowed under the CBA, so it might be a moot point.

That said, if Lin has a great year, he would be a palatable return for Paul (Lin, Shump and the Knicks’ 2017 first rounder is a decent start). Lin would do well in Los Angeles.

Yeah, and it’s better to focus on feeling good about the current roster. It’s kinda like being out to dinner with your beautiful wife and a bombshell at the next table keeps striking revealing poses and winking; hard to ignore.

That said, if Lin has a great year, he would be a palatable return for Paul (Lin, Shump and the Knicks’ 2017 first rounder is a decent start). Lin would do well in Los Angeles.