Horford is decent, but he is very replaceable. Honestly, when I hear talk of him being in the All-Star Game it shows you how pathetic the center position is in the NBA, right now. He is not a game-changer, overall, but he is a good post defender. Again, he's decent, but you can interchange him with lesser players.
sigh... unfortunately the bottom of the east is TERRIBLE. as bad as the knicks seem like they are doing they are still 7th in the east
Melo tweaked injured ankle. http://espn.go.com/new-york/nba/story/_/id/7467734/carmelo-anthony-back-new-york-knicks-lineup
What's your point...? Regardless, it should be obvious which one of those two 6-7's is more impressive.
Cleveland wins and moves ahead of the Knicks to capture the 7th spot. It doesn't matter if Melo and Amare score 25 ppg, if the opponent is allowed to score over 100 pts a night. The team plays absolutely no defense.
if knicks and rockets end in bottom 10... thats good odds with the lottery being a crapshoot.... we could easily get into the top 5
I don't think the Rox will end up in the bottom 10. Worst case is we barely miss the playoffs and get the 14th pick again. In NYC, IMHO it'll all depend on how long their owner waits before canning Mr. Pringles. If he fires D'Antoni soon NYC might squeak into the playoffs. If he doesn't, I foresee a lot of QUIT in Melo and Amare and NYC will end up with a top 10 lottery pick. Which would be AWESOME.
I think it's unlikely that the Knicks will have a top 5 pick. The Knicks have not had a top 5 pick since 1985-- when the drafted Kenny Walker 5th overall. Since then, the highest they've drafted 6th once (Gallinari), 7th once (Nene, traded immediately to Denver), 8th twice (Frye and Jordan Hill) and 9th once (Sweetney). Their draft pick actually would have been the 2nd overall in 2006, but they traded that to Chicago in the Eddy Curry swap (haha!). In any case, it take some special kind of incompetence and dysfunction or exceptional luck to get into the top 5. You really need to be something like a 25-or-less win team to have a realistic shot at it. The current Knicks team is unlikely to get there. First, they do have talent on the squad in Chandler, Melo and Amare. Second, they will actually be trying to make the playoffs even if they do struggle early given the ease of doing do in the East, and the fact that they team can't exactly sell NYC on another "rebuilding" effort. My guess is that the best-case scenario for Houston is for the Knicks to teeter on the edge of playoff berth most of the season (i.e. slightly below .500) and then for some major event (injury, mutiny against coach, etc.) to push them out of the playoffs and into, say, a 30-32 win season and a 8th or 9th lotto spot. The worst case scenario (other than the Knicks winning the lotto), would be for Baron Davis to actually spark the Knicks to a good record.
the knicks is top 5 protected... but what i meant was for our pick to land in top 5 hopefully but if not then if for someway we can get two picks in the 6-10 range we could easily move into the top 5 by combining our two firsts... interesting debate tho...hypothetical situation...We miss playoffs and are kinda a bottom team and in the lottery we get the #7 pick...The knicks barely miss the playoffs because of some injury so we get the infamous #14 pick... two scenarios we trade both 7 and 14 to move to 3 or 4 or... since the draft is deep we use them both for more talent and depth... id have to side with using both picks(unless we could somehow snag drummond or davis at#2or#1)...i could easily see Michael Kidd-Gilchrist being there at 7 and possibly Terrence Jones at 14... so which would you prefer... a top 3 pick or two lottery picks...????
I'd take the top-3 pick, easy. I think you (and many others here) severely overvalue having two mid- to late lottery picks. If there are five players in this year's draft that are head and shoulders above everyone else (as may be the case), then no team with a top-5 pick is going to trade out of the top 5 in order to get two players that are inferior. Just look at the 2010 Draft, when Golden State offered the #6 overall pick plus additional assets (which were as good as a late lottery pick) for the #4 pick. Minnesota said no. That was just to move up TWO spots. It will be incredibly difficult to trade up into the top 3 picks, even if the Rockets lucked into, say, the #8 and #11 picks (a highly unlikely scenario in itself). For people here to just ASSUME that it's a viable scenario is just unrealistic.
