emon11377: very good article. very convincing. getting paul at this moment will cost us too much and gain too little. what if carmelo decides not to come to NY (as we’ve all witnessed what the king has done recently) + isnt he going to get paid estimately $21+ million per season if he was to accept denvers offer..thats way more than what NY can offer. still, if he was to come to NY and somehow we acquire paul, NY would still not be a championship team for the next 5 years (heat would beat them). we’d be a competitive team but not a winning team and we are doing all this just so we can keep up with the heat. i say we stick to our young players and they should be given a chance to develop and mature. if we were to trade any of our players, then we should trade them for a 1st round pick (#1 overall). drafting young players are more beneficial than signing a consistently failure veteran like carmelo.  (Quote)

i think that paul+stats+melo can beat wade+bosh+lebron
paul will make the diffrence if he’ll be at his best.
sure its alot to do with the support…

emon11377: very good article. very convincing. getting paul at this moment will cost us too much and gain too little. what if carmelo decides not to come to NY (as we’ve all witnessed what the king has done recently) + isnt he going to get paid estimately $21+ million per season if he was to accept denvers offer..thats way more than what NY can offer. still, if he was to come to NY and somehow we acquire paul, NY would still not be a championship team for the next 5 years (heat would beat them). we’d be a competitive team but not a winning team and we are doing all this just so we can keep up with the heat. i say we stick to our young players and they should be given a chance to develop and mature. if we were to trade any of our players, then we should trade them for a 1st round pick (#1 overall). drafting young players are more beneficial than signing a consistent failure veteran like carmelo.  

massive: do you guys think Azubuike can be a Mickael Pietrus type player for us?  

I like Azubuike. Think he is better than Shannon Brown. Hope he is healthy and is the starting SG next year.

Stoudemire for sure – TS 53-53.6 pre-D’Antoni, 61.7-65.6 post-D’Antoni. And I don’t have the stats for this but his game definitely suffered when they went away from the D’Antoni system when Porter was there, then improved markedly when Gentry brought the old game back.

Raja Bell -TS was 50-52.7 pre-D’Antoni – 56.1-58.4 with D’Antoni. 54.8% post-D’Antoni in Charlotte.

How about David Lee? Clearly got MUCH better as a player under D’Antoni (although his shot charts changed causing his TS to go to 59% or so).

Marion you already mentioned. 51-53.8 TS pre-D’Antoni, 55.6-59.1 with D’Antoni, back to 53% post-D’Antoni.

Joe Johnson – career TS <50 prior to D'Antoni, 55.6 in the year he played with D'Antoni – the year during which he turned from a disappointing 1st rounder into a near-max-contract guy.

By the way, that is the essentially the entire starting 5 of the 2004-6 Suns except for Nash, who also put up better stats under D'Antoni's system than he did in Dallas. Just to pick one — even though Nash has always been a great shooter, his average 3PT% in Dallas was 41.3%, and in Phoenix has been 44.3% — which is what has led to his even more otherwordly TS% in PHX as opposed to his just awesome TS% in Dallas. Did he suddenly morph into a better shooter, or did the system set up better shots for him? Hard to say, but when everyone on the team shoots better, either they have the greatest shooting coaches in the world, or they took easier shots. Is that all because of Nash? I guess that's possible –except that Nowitzki's stats actually got better after Nash left.

So here's my problem with your analysis of Felton. Statistics are useful in predicting the future when the same test is done over and over again in the same setting. In basketball, free throw percentage is a great statistic – 15 feet, ball, hoop, that's it. But when you look at broader offensive statistics where there are so many confounders, a player's specific role and what system they play in are HUGE factors to consider. If you asked Tim Duncan to play run and gun, or put him in Josh Smith's role on Atlanta, would you necessarily expect the same numbers as he puts up in the Spurs slower half-court offense which is tailored for his skills? Of course not. SSOL is predicated on getting good shots up before the defense has time to set — so ideally, one would get easier shots which would lead to higher shooting percentages.

You may ultimately be right about Felton, but I'd like to see him play a year in this system before I go ahead and agree with you…

Re: Melo’s “Ranking,” Dwyane Wade is a combo guard, and LeBron is a point-forward. That being said, there are only two players who play SF who are better than Melo; LeBron and Durant. I do agree that he’s a top 10 talent, I’d go as far as to say Top 5 or 6 (LeBron, Howard, Durant, Paul, and then a toss up between Wade and Melo) because I don’t think anybody in the league has the offensive skill-set he has to go along with his mean streak.

Re: Walsh, even though we missed out on the ideal LeBron/Bosh scenario, Walsh left open the door for an NY3. One is on board, and the other two have New York as #1 destinations outside of their current teams. In all honesty, I’d rather have Chris Paul, Carmelo Anthony, and Amar’e than LeBron and Bosh. In Donnie We Trust.

On an unrelated topic, do you guys think Azubuike can be a Mickael Pietrus type player for us?

Re: Shannon Brown, if his D is as good as advertised here, I would take a chance on him. Could be a Raja Bell 2.0 type player with more hops. I rank defense as the most important thing we need out of the 2 guard spot right now with 3 point shooting ranking a close 2nd. Between Brown and Walker (and Azu if he’s healthy and not traded) we could have that covered.

I love Donnie’s commitment to D. He’s done a great job considering we whiffed on the big three. This is where D’Antoni earns his money. Some of the defensive sets with Randolph on the floor should be amazing – him at the top of the key smothering the point, Felton and one of our wings shutting down the opposing wings, and Gallo/Amare/Turiaf/Mosgov guarding the goal. I’m starting to get goosebumps!

The only thing I feel is still lacking is a backup ballhandler. If Felton stinks it up, I don’t feel terribly secure with Douglas being the distributor. Not that I love him, but a guy like Farmar as a back up would’ve been nice. Or even a Jason Williams on the vet’s minimum.

I have concluded that I would prefer to gamble on the youth we have. If we go with CP3 and he gets hurt, there is nowhere to go with hi, If Gallo or Randolph gets hurt, they are still valuable because of their youth, their length and their contracts. I have a really good feeling about Gallo and Randolph and would hate to lose either one prior to knowing what we really have in those guys.

Like him or not, Walsh has shown that he is willing to go all in when he feels the situation calls for it, e.g. with McGrady, and to a lesser extent, in outbidding Chicago for D’Antoni. Even though he lost that gamble in absolute terms, he still has the franchise in a situation where he not only can consider guys like Paul and Melo, but they actually want to come here! Considering that, I can live with whatever transpires. I think that Walsh also wants to know what he has before making a deal of either of these 2 guys, especially if Okafor comes with the deal.

I must also say that I differ with many here regarding Melo’s value as a player. In my opinion, he is certainly a top-10 player in the league, and a top 5 small forward (higher if you consider Wade and LeBron to be guards.) But then again, I am higher on Kobe than many here as well.