1kingzfan said:
I also believe that Petrie will not enter the regular season without a proven vet for the 2 guard slot. With the commitments from the top four 2's that are now free, the window is almost closed, though, for being able to really upgrade from Mobley with a move. Joe Johnson is about all that's left for us to be able to say we truly upgraded, although several others out there are more than serviceable.
Could it be that Cat stays?
As I recall, Petrie didn't even mention Cat in his post-season state of the team address and future plans, so it appears that he wants fresh blood there.
Jaric is the only name that really seems likely as a FA.
Thing is, at a certain point, and I've mentioned this before, Geoff SHOULD let some young guys have a crack. I'm obviously not 100% sold on either kid, but they are the only kids we've got. Our period of near-greatness is over. Now we can keep on cycling through middling vets until the remainder of the "core" creaks and groans into retirement, probably keep ourselves in or around the edges of the playoffs, and be not only utterly inconsequential, but vaguely pathetic in the Knicks tradition of patheticness. Basically too chicken**** to ever take the chances you need to to get good again, and so cowering behind mediocrity while trying to convince the ticket holders that the team is more competitive than it is.
If we ever want to get back to the top again, there are really only two realistic routes: 1) the traditional one that has resulted in the core for half of the top teams out there -- sink all the way into the lottery, get a little lucky, and draft well. I'd rather not unless we had to, because you screw up then you're STUCK in the lottery for a long long time; or 2) trade around and try to get a steal from somebody, whether it be a pick or a player. But the only realistic way you are going to get a steal of a player is if he is young and maybe you can catch him developing. Its not likely at all you are going to net a major championship level difference maker in the FA market where you have to bid against teams with much more cap room, and if you're dead set against trading the core, we have precious few attractive trading pieces to dangle to net an established stud player on another team.
So the clearest way back up is to correctly evaluate a young kid or kids with big time potential, and then give him the time to develop. Constantly smothering kids with midlevel vets was ok during the championship runs because literally every game counted, and the margin between winning a title and not can be so small. But really, who the hell cares whether we win 48 next year or 51 next year? I'd rather win 51 of course, and it would be nice to keep the 50 win streak going. But I do NOT want to win 51 if the result of doing so is that we are just about guaranteed of never being able to win MORE than 51 in future years.
