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Messages - Jack Straw

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1
Basketball / Re: Knicks
« on: February 19, 2022, 10:53:57 AM »
There was of course potential rewards with Kemba.  ..... Thibs obviously the wrong coach to monitor and ease up on a gimpy vet's minutes.  Kemba's second year was very questionable.

Noel was heroic last year.  Hasn't been healthy this year.  ......  Mitch insurance, since he tends to be injury and foul prone.

Funny how most of the Knix played better in their contract year and regressed this year ...

well in the abstract any signing has potential rewards, but as you yourself note - Thibs was the wrong coach for an aged Kemba...

Heroic Noel was also injured periodically and has a history of injury, so Noel as insurance for an injury prone player is a clever meta narrative, but a dopey  real world one...

no, with all that cap space last summer, FO Rose and co. spit the bit - easy to say now, but also looking back - it was overly conservative, a lot of risk for not so much reward, did not ACTUALLY address the point guard issue in either a short term or long term way, and begins to open up the notion that Rose might be a good agent but a lousy president. 

Also, what is the deal with hiring the former T Wolves president - that's a pretty admin. heavy FO - a lot of cooks in an increasingly small kitchen...

2
Basketball / Re: Knicks
« on: February 18, 2022, 07:43:04 PM »
3/$82 as he gets on into his mid-30's?
Quite a gamble, and CHI gave up Thad and a future 1st as well.

at least with a gamble there's potential reward
Kemba and Nerlens weren't  gambles - just plain bad signings, and we burned a 1st on Cam, so clearly that wasn't an issue...

3
Basketball / Re: Knicks
« on: February 18, 2022, 10:47:38 AM »
Almost every single coach, in most any sport,  is not anything special let alone a genius, I think Lester might have made this point a  while ago.  The word genius and hardworking get thrown around too frequently so as to mean nothing...

There are, of course,  outliers - certainly coaches like  Riley, Phool Jackson, and Pops (though Pops is not quite the same genius without real stars, Auerbach as well - but he too had so much more talent that the rest of the league on a pretty regular basis.

But Thibs - good, solid coach, but this stubbornness thing is too glaring to overlook.  As coaching is about teaching and learning and figuring how to motivate - to not change, to not try new things - is downright reactionary, esp. when your methods are so clearly not working. 

And listening to coaches, GMs and team presidents talk - post games, in-games, pre-games, and interviews - there is nothing more superfluous and meaningless....

All that said - the disconnect between the FO Rose and Thibs is on Rose, and the roster construction for the coach you hand-picked is all wrong...so I put much of this on FO Rose...

And lastly, to reiterate a point Elephant has made many times - we need a fucking NBA quality starting point guard... I mean Rose's inability to get this taken care of, is up there with Gettleman's inability to build an O-line and Cash's inability to get a real shortstop...

The lack of a real NBA quality starting PG has had a domino effect on the whole team, and not in a good way... 

4
Basketball / Re: Knicks
« on: February 16, 2022, 09:58:00 PM »
everything on the planet is changing, even the weather level is changing, every goddam thing around me is changing - not for the better mind you , but changing.....




that is except the New York Fucking Knicks...nothing ever changes with the Knicks

5
Basketball / Re: Knicks
« on: February 16, 2022, 09:55:22 PM »
what a fuckin' train wreck....

6
Basketball / Re: Knicks
« on: February 10, 2022, 10:17:38 AM »
Elfrid. We talking about Elfrid this morning.

could be worse, could be still talking about Lavor Postell

7
Basketball / Re: Knicks
« on: February 09, 2022, 09:42:24 PM »
Whew...Chip resurrecting the earthly remains (one of my fav Chipsterisms) of Elfrid "4 on 5" Payton...Kemba's  not close to the answer and never was, but neither was Payton

https://nypost.com/2022/02/09/knicks-hire-gersson-rosas-as-consultant-ahead-of-nba-trade-deadline/

so  this is what its come down to...hiring a FO guy some 24 hrs before the trade deadline...if bloomin' rose is so out of his depth then  he should have hired someone like this when he first  came on...and also isn't Perry supposed to be the experienced FO guy?

Rose, unless he pulls something exceptional out of his asshat in the next 24 is just another,  in a long line of,  pathetic Knicks poohbahs

8
Basketball / Re: bloom is off the Rose
« on: February 06, 2022, 11:52:46 AM »
This isn't headline news but.......
We really need a point guard.

At a fundamental level it's all about this. 

Other than being a feel good story, signing Kemba was a bad idea - wrong guy for the wrong coach at the wrong time in his career.  Rose not signing a starter quality PG is not unlike Cashman not signing a real shortstop last year for the Yankees and going with Gleyber instead - colossal failure.

And yes, Thibs rigidity is getting old.  I'm not on  the Mike Miller bandwagon, but Thibs needs to have his "come to Coughlin moment" and do a major course correct, what worked in last year's bizarro world season is ever so clearly not working now, and Rose needs to tell Thibs he needs to reboot in a big way...

And lastly, there is Leon Rose and co.  What a hash they made of things  last summer.  Much has been made of how signing a failed Celtic back court would not have the desired affect, and esp., would not be simpatico with their hand-picked coach, so no need to repeat.

That once again there is a voluminous disconnect between coach and FO is infuriating.  Rose has until what - Thurs. to rebalance the Knicks or consign this season to the dumpster.  That Rose started off with such promise and went downhill is so quickly quintessentially "Knicks."

9
Basketball / Re: Knicks
« on: December 22, 2021, 09:32:26 PM »
probably so...but with Covid protocols and all, there's going to be lots of  opportunities for everyone.  The whole thing about Thibs not talking to Kemba at all after he was benched - seems very wrongheaded...

10
Basketball / Re: Knicks
« on: December 22, 2021, 09:07:10 PM »
Rose to have surgery , out 8 weeks...Kemba's second coming or will youth be served?

11
Basketball / Re: Knicks
« on: August 24, 2021, 08:41:21 AM »
interesting upcoming season, no one will overlook the Knicks vs. a more potent Knicks offense & Thibs  doing his Svenjolly thing...

48

Kiid - don't you mean 45...I mean you always go with 45

12
Basketball / Re: Knicks
« on: August 05, 2021, 10:59:11 AM »
Leon's vision coming into a little better focus -  keep the band together with a few tweaks for the sake of the offense...not a bad thing, esp. considering how most first Qs went last season...
Leon likes depth and continuity - now there's a concept...

lining up a bunch of fair market value two year contracts with a team option third year keeps flexibility and opportunity in place...
locking up Julius at quite the discount based on lots of good mojo seems like a real feat not accomplished  by a Knicks front office since the 90's...

of course the big issues are the knicked kneed duo of Walker & Rose...that's a season long concern...but the reality is most NBA teams experience impactful  injuries every season

other than overpaying for Noel (which may have something to do with Robinson's health - seems he was seen in a walking boot) color me  cautiously buoyant

13
Basketball / Re: Knicks
« on: June 02, 2021, 09:50:58 PM »
I posted elsewhere about the mid 70s Boston school deseg/bussing issue and the black guy getting attacked with the US flag. That image set the narrative. Didn't matter that Mass had a black senator, or never had race riots when other big cities did, but that image of the black guy getting attacked stuck in people's mind.

Real story-Remember in Spike Lee's "Do the Right Thing" when the white guy in the Celts Bird jersey has a run-in with a neighborhood black guy. That shit was true. I lived in Brooklyn from 1983-1992, and in the mid 80s the local kids, mostly Italian and Irish kids, all wore Celtics jackets solely due to the team's racial make-up. And this neighborhood was about 1 mile from the Barclay Center.

Boston as a cracker town is bullshit, its just like most cities, except it acts as a target for others to scape goat.

Like KI did.

He changed the narrative from "I was a bullshitter and couldn't deliver what I had promised and quit on the team" to

if Boston boos me its because they're racist and we all know it.

And then he wiped the shit off his shoes on mid-court and provoked one moron to get the punchline he wanted.

Boston as a cracker town is bull shit... C'mon Banks...Boston has a particularly nasty racist past...

just because all of America is racist, doesn't absolve Boston from it's racism or being called out for its racism - by KI or anyone else....Boston is racist.  More or less than any number of other cities, but clearly racist.  Southie and bussing were very extreme , the Charles Stewart case happened in Boston in the 80's....that absolutely distinguishes Boston and not in a good way... 

and as for someone stepping on an image on basketball court...at some point we have to start acting like adults - I mean really?  ....who the fuck cares.....


14
Basketball / Re: Knicks
« on: May 28, 2021, 11:07:49 PM »
why not Lavor Postell?  The problems are beyond 10 good minutes of French Frank, if Julius and RJ are not hitting, and Bullock and Burks are also not hitting, then French Frank is not  a difference maker...

15
Basketball / Re:is it a trick or an illusion?
« on: May 28, 2021, 10:24:48 PM »
is the stage too big? form me that's really the only Q...
and right now it seems the answer is yes...

everyone expected a 6 or 7 game series, so the Knicks would have to have lost a few...so there is that...

how deep can they dig - we'll find out...

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