I'm impressed that anyone is optimistic about this new patchwork team...
But I don’t dare to OPENLY agree with you because Chipstern would castigate me for PANDERING!!!
Alice, I mean Chip, you’re the greatest! 😁
Hey, Bo and I part company on the #1 pick, and the conservative approach the team has taken.
Some might say, wishywashy. Some might say lame.
In talking with forum alumni Nagel out on the left coast, he, like many Knicks fans was anticipating the BIG SPLASH.
I'm not sure WHAT IF ANYTHING I was anticipating.
What I was HOPING, was that we did not, as I have driven the metaphor into the ground, felt compelled to swing for the fences at all costs.
Free agency and the Knicks has always seemed a cruel mirage to me.
AN OBSESSION WITH SHINY OBJECTS.
Among which Rabid Rabbi Berman listed
There is a story in the POST about how the Knicks chances at obtaining Victor Oladipo are evaporating.
I mean seriously.
"But when they missed on main targets such as Fred VanVleet, Gordon Hayward, D.J. Augustin and Carmelo Anthony, the Knicks adjusted. The Post has learned Rose even made a big push for athletic power forward Jerami Grant, who signed with Detroit."
Okay, first, I, not unlike BoD, championed certain free agent targets, such as VanVleet and Grant and Augustin.
I was not an enthusiast for the Chris Paul pursuit, but felt if he wanted to be here, it could be tenable. He wanted to be near his family in Phoenix, had a relationship with Coach Monty Williams, and found the Suns to be farther along in their rebuild than the Knicks, so Sam Presti accomodated him.
Van Vleet was my number one choice, but I never thought we had a realistic shot at FVV, not so much a matter of money, as I felt he was a product of the Raptors system, and wanted to carry on their competitive ascent and sustain their competitive continuity.
The Knicks probably queered their chances at Augustin with their pursuit of Hayward, and I breathed a sigh of relief when Gordon Hayward went with the Hornets, as $120,000,000 seemed a garish four year commitment to someone whose prime was a few years back before his horrific injury. If he had been willing to accept something like the Randle deal's numbers and flex, well that's different.
But Milwaukee offered DJ three yeas guaranteed at $7 million per to play for a contender. Grant got three years guaranteed to play for a rebuilding Detroit. Maybe he perceived NY had a log jam at SF and PF, and wanted to clearly be THE MAN.
Charlotte has a growing young core of players. When their maturity starts to kick in, GH will be 32-33, and sucking up cap space which might better be spent on younger puppies.
The notion there is something tragic about Oladipo slipping away flummoxes me. He is coming off of a really bad injury on the final year of a contract, and could jump ship next summer. Is he the player he once was for the Hayward Money he is going to demand, if not command?
And Carmelo was a target? FUCK YOU. In what alternative universe?
Now Christian Wood? I was down for that before Toppin.
Westbrook? Another shiny object, certainly a great talent, and still a dynamic force, but a diminishing one at 32 and owed 40-42-44 over the next few years. Do we really want to tie ourselves down to giving him the keys to the car. Five years ago, or when OKC drafted him just ahead of Gallinari.
Should we have made a run at Gallniari as Atlanta did? They are farther along with their franchise player than we are, Trae relative to RJ. Anyway....
These are the things that make BoD plotz, as WE NEED STARTERS.
This is where we part company.
To me...we need competition, continuity and culture.
Stockpiling draft picks and cap space seems prudent to me, THE ONE STRATEGEM THAT THE KNICKS HAVE NEVER COMMITTED TO, and because NY's chaos and instability over the past 10-20 years is still reeking to high heaven, squandering assets in search of quick fixes and shiny objects, FREE AGENTS THE LIKES OF DURANT AND IRVING were like, THE KNICKS, are you fucking kidding me.
Given our fan base and the derision of the media, it takes a certain amount of sand to proceed as the Knicks are now doing, with the pressure to make a big splash, GET STARTERS as Bo laments, is intense.
When was the last time we committed to YOUTH?
Maybe in the mid-60s. We had a nice mix of young players surrounding Bernard during Hubie's run. We had a yoiung core around Patrick during his initial run in RileyBall.
Bo is right about one thing.
Do we have a single standout bell cow talent/leader such as we had with Red, Hubie and Riley's Knicks.
We do not appear to.
The challenge thus is to grow our own, least ways, to nurture what we have, while Thibs seeks to reboot our culture.
Am I unduly hopeful?
Oh, Chef Of The Future, Can THIBS Core A Apple? Stay tuned. 
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