Yeah I can't wait until Toronto signs him in a couple of years.

Darko barely played and Douglas looked like a taller version of Nate.

Watched about 15 minutes on rewind last night when I couldn't sleep:

-Missed Jeffries going bonkers from 3 in the first half...I refuse to believe this happened...they interviewed him at the half and he said that's what he worked on all summer because he thinks hes a brilliant fit for MdA ball...plz go nuts for 10 games then gtfo the team
-Darko was a giant foulbox...he could not handle Brook Lopez by any means...who looked really good for stretches
-Noone could guard Devin Harris which was a little disconcerting...I think they had Douglas on him who was erratic from both ends of the floor
-Gallinari still seems like such an awkward ball player but gets results...if he can ever develop some fluidity I will become even more in love with the rooster
-Didn't see any Jordan Hill minutes...hopefully Herb can teach him some things this year though

GOGOGOOGOGO 8TH SEED

LOL

Ron Howard, G DNP COACH'S DECISION

It sucks his contract is so horrid because if he could hit threes like that he'd be insanely valuable given that he might be their best defender (how sad is that) and could cause a ton of matchup problems.

well it would be nice to have curry healthy, have him play then trade him to some dumb GM. idk

I'm downloading all the games from the 1994 ECF and finals right now. Gonna cry myself to sleep in the fetal position the next few nights while watching them.

**** you, Reggie Miller

They need to bring back NBA on NBC. Or at least the intro music

Yeah best part about the 2008 Olympics was when they played that theme.

It's strange how Reggie became one of my all-time favorite players. I guess it's just from having to call him daddy all those years.

Reggie ruined my childhood...and the 94 finals

It's ok he never won a ring either.

I definitely grew to love Reggie after the '90s Knicks were done. I assumed something like the following probably happened, and it's really awesome that it did (from Hoopedia):

"In early April [2005], Miller played his last game in the Garden - the visiting arena where many of his most brilliant moments took place. Although it was somewhat anti-climatic, it was not unemotional. The Knicks had faded from playoff contention and many of the bodies in the orange and blue uniforms had changed from the chaotic rivalry, but the fans remained and remembered the wounds.

Initially, he was booed but near the end of the game that he only would score 13 points in a Pacers 97-79 victory, the crowd chanted "Reg-gie, Reg-gie" and honored him with a standing ovation. Miller closed the affair with an embrace of Lee, the embodiment of the Knicks' anti-Miller sentiment. "

In the end, years after the fact, you have to appreciate the entertainment (brutal as it may have been) that he gave us. Yes, he was the villain and he often won, but villains are awesome. We had the edge on the Pacers in the '90s anyway, 3 series to 2.

The two most brutal '90s mishaps were Charles Smith in the lane and the bench-clearing brawl. In '93 the Knicks were up 2-0 on Chicago, lost the next 2, and then in Game 5 at home (where they had won like 28 straight), they lost by 1 with Smith's 4 tries right under the rim. You can watch a good (and horribly upsetting) recap of the series on the Bulls DVDs, and it sometimes airs on the NBA station. They play this scary music showing the Knicks coming out, and the Bulls were clearly terrified of that Knicks team. The Knicks, including Smith, had an amazing, intoxicating cocky swagger and knew they were the best team, which they may well have been. They also had these sharp fade cuts that made them look like lean dangerous warriors. So anyway, that hurts maybe the most because we were so close - and the Knicks weren't even on my radar at that time.

Then the bench-clearing brawl, when the Knicks were the hottest team in the league, up 3-1 on Miami after sweeping the first round and winning in Chicago on the last game of the regular season. That destined Knicks-Bulls 1997 ECF would have been out of this ****ing world. A far inferior 1996 Knicks team played the superior 72-10 Bulls the year before and had been competitive in every game, winning Game 3 and then being up by 3 points with a minute to go in Game 4, which would have tied it 2-2. So in '97...Jesus. I think a class-action suit should be filed against David Stern and the league for stopping that amazing series from happening. I want to travel to the universe where it did happen. Probably would have lost, but it would have been incredible.

I read an article about DLee which brought to light some complexities in the Bird exception I didn't know about. I was under the impression that the Knicks could sign players until the soft cap was filled, THEN re-sign Lee using the Bird Exception to go over the cap. This is not the case.

Free agents with Bird exceptions continue to hold up an imaginary portion of the salary cap even after their contract expires. In Lee's case, it would be ~$10.5 mil (150% of his current contract) in the summer of 2010. In order to free up that money, the Knicks would have to either renounce his Bird rights, or re-sign him. That SUCKS.

This also applies to the Mid-level exception. There is an imaginary ~$6 million being held by the MLE, so we'd have to renounce our ability to use the MLE to free up that money.

We have around $30 mil in free space for 2010. After a max contract, that leaves ~$13 mil. So, we'll basically have to choose between Lee and a 2nd big FA. We can't have both.



This is from the salary cap FAQ found here: http://members.cox.net/lmcoon/salarycap.htm

Woops, our cap space is actually less than that. We only have about $20mil.

I've been saying this the entire offseason. I didn't exactly know why though, so it's my fault for not being able to explain it properly.

I misunderstood what you were trying to say. Which stems from my misunderstanding of how the exceptions worked in relation to the soft cap.

In other news, Sun Yue and Ron Howard were cut. No more gimmick accounts on this team.

only watched about 10 minutes of last night's game. both teams looked pretty horrendous shooting from the field...harrington was the only bright spot in the streak i watched. looking at the box...jesus christ 5-31 from 3. 19-34 from the line is also embarassing. celtics dont appear to have been great either so it was probably just an overall terrible preseason game noone cared about. i still hate jared jeffries stop shooting threes get off the court die. jordan hill wasn't completely inept.

is there no one else we could potentially get rid of for more cap space?

we have to get rid of curry and/or jeffries. not an easy task.

Yeah it's going to be virtually impossible to move even one of them.

so assuming they dont get moved, do we at least cut them at the end of season so we can fill the roster spot with an actually useful player?

Are you even allowed to do that?

Maybe with Curry. Jeffries sucks, but he's better than any min contract player we'd pick up

Yeah, they're going to be signing a bunch of guys to min-contracts as it is, I can't imagine that they'll be so many out there that they want that they'd have to cut either one.

Can't believe there's already 4 pages of a Knicks thread. That's devotion imo.

Also, I dunno who said 40 wins, but that's a silly high expectation. Most of the futures I've seen from the book have them under 30 wins, and I think that's close to accurate, I think anything 30+ should be considered a decent season.

Also as previously stated here, I'm not even sure winning should be near the top of the list for goals on this Knicks team. Should obviously be giving excessive time to some prospects who might not really deserve much NBA PT so as to develop them more quickly.