How nice would it be if Hou won the lottery and got the 6th pick from NYK! :grin: What an infusion of youth and talent to get Anthony Davis, Bradley Beal, Donatas Motiejunas and Surgio Llull all at the some time! The RG Vipers would win the D-League championship for sure!
Who would have thunk that Linsanity was only fool's gold for them, and when Amare and Melo came back, they went back to their losing way. :grin:
How much talent does D'Antoni need? This is getting ridiculous. Jeff Van Gundy would have this team in the top four of the East, easily.
Melo and Stat would probably be benched if they played for JVG for lack of defense, but then again the Knicks were winning more games without them.
if the knicks can continue this slide we should give melo and amare a standing o (assuming they're still around).
JVG treats his superstars like superstars. They get to sit in a director's chair courtside and watch the other half of practice from there. Ask T-Mac.
Everything seemed to be going fine until Melo came back. Knicks had some pretty impressive wins. Now that Melo is back they've had mostly really really bad losses.
Obviously the chemistry is thrown off with Melo, but they weren't that great without him either. Playoff fodder at best. If they want to be a great team, they need to find a way to work him in. If we trade some of our vets to the Bucks, Pistons, Nets, we could pull off an amazing tank job. Clobber the Knicks for their pick, and miss the playoffs so we get ours as well... 7th and 11th pick sound good to you guys? :grin:
I agree. But T-Mac was a superstar back when JVG coached the Rockets. Melo and Stat this are not. If you don't believe me, just look at their stats, which have dropped off big time from last year. Defensive-minded coaches will cut some slack to his top scorers. So one can say the reason why JVG would expect some defense out of Melo isn't that he's lazy on D, but rather he can't drop 30 every night fairly efficiently anymore.
Van Gundy had Tracy McGrady and Juwan Howard at Carmelo and Amare's positions. None of those players are good defenders. Tracy McGrady and Juwan Howard didnt get benched, Van Gundy just SQUEEZED SOME DEFENSE OUT of them like he's supposed to. (Stromile, Bonzi lulz, okay thats benching) I think Van Gundy would at least have them at a comfortable 6th seed. Carmelo and Amare wouldnt buy in as much, but he'd have Tyson Chandler even MORE BEASTING than what he is, and have Landry Fields, Jared Jeffries and the others contributing around them.
Hell any of the last 4 Rockets coaches - Including the current one would get this team deep in the playoffs. (Rudy T , JVG , Adleman & McHale). Mr.Pringles has no defensive schemes .... Its almost impossible to defend when you give up the volume of long rebounds and fast breaks his "Seven Seconds Or Less" offense gives up .... In D'Antoni's offense , no shot is a bad shot. As for Lin , he's come back to earth a bit as teams have film to study his tendencies .... and his carelessness with the ball - 4 TO's a game - is 2x too many for an NBA PG , those TO numbers have dropped since Melo & Amare returned , he was averaging 6 per game when they were out. With the way Cleveland and Milwaukee are playing, either of those teams could end up in the 8 spot - Milwuakee holds the #8 currently.
New York Knicks= 18-24 24 Games left: 0. vs Portland 1. vs Indiana 2. @ Indiana 3. vs Toronto 4. @ Philadelphia 5. @ Toronto 6. vs Detroit 7. vs Milwaukee 8. vs Orlando 9. @ Atlanta 10. vs Cleveland 11. @ Indiana 12. @ Orlando 13. vs Chicago 14. @ Chicago 15. @ Milwaukee 16. vs Washington 17. vs Miami 18. vs Boston 19. @ New Jersey 20. @ Cleveland 21. @ Atlanta 22. vs LA Clippers 23. @ Charlotte A: The Knicks play .500 and go 12-12 from here on out. *30-36 *Playoffs or 9-11th pick in the draft B: The Knicks play well and go 15-9 from here on out. *33-33 *Playoffs C: The Knicks play poorly and go 9-15 from here on out. *27-39 *6th-8th pick in the draft Can the Knicks lose 15 more games? Looking at the schedule, If they keep slumping for a little while, it is entirely possible. Praying for a 6-8 pick to draft a complete stud.
Howard did get benched, Chuck Hayes took over the starting spot. Also, McGrady's defense suffered the most after JVG's departure, due to injuries and other reasons. Before that his defense wasn't good, it was adequate enough though. Melo has never been a good defender his whole career.
It may be safer for us to trade our pick 12-14 and take the gamble on the knicks pick, hopefully the knicks lose on wednesday, that will give morey something to think about before he pulls the trigger on anything.
