Surely this will make up for the Western Conference All-Star snub?
Newsday’s Greg Logan claims the Knicks are far closer to acquiring Portland’s Darius Miles (above) and Theo Ratliff than any prevously rumored deals for Stevie Franchise or K-Mart.
The easiest deal for the Knicks to complete would be the one with Portland. Ratliff, who is suffering from an ankle injury, played for Brown in Philadelphia and is the shot-blocking center he craves. But he’s 32 and comes at a cost of $23.22 million over the next two seasons.
Miles has four more seasons worth $34 million on his deal and has been at odds with new Trail Blazers coach Nate McMillan, but the 24-year-old small forward is close with the Knicks’ Quentin Richardson, who lately has won Brown’s praise for his hard work and leadership. Of course, the Knicks have another young former Blazer at small forward in Qyntel Woods, who has shown great promise.
If the Knicks want Ratliff and Miles, all they have to do is include Lee — “the finishing piece,” as the Western Conference personnel expert put it — along with Hardaway’s contract.
Please, o God PLEASE, smite Isiah Thomas! He’s making me miss Layden. (Okay, almost.) Larry deserves some blame for the current Peyton Pace that is the NY Knicks, but yeeesh! I can’t believe how desperate this man is. Theo Ratcliff? They’d be better off callin’ Spree…
Maybe Darius Miles is promising to introduce Isiah to former Perfect Score costar Scarlett Johannsen.
I always assume, when looking at NBA GMs and some of the puzzling deals that happen, that they just know more than me about this stuff: it’s their job, after all, and if I had an area of expertise I’d expect people to defer to me there, too.
But Thomas’s deals are, almost without exception, so puzzling that I can’t defer judgment. It really is almost as if any bad investment/injured-overpaid dude is on his radar, and he will not be dissuaded from bringing him aboard. Tie that to Brown’s fussiness about playing his young guys — as if there’s any compelling reason to play Maurice Taylor ahead of anyone — and it’s not surprising that the team’s a disaster. But how is this still going on? Miles hasn’t been healthy for a full season in years, is regarded as a coach-killer and is getting paid too much for too long. Ratliff is the most one-dimensional player at his position in the whole league (at 6’10”, he hasn’t topped 8 RPG in five years, and averaged 5.3 last year), and is also getting paid too much for too long. I really think that there’s not a single other GM in the league who would trade for Ratliff, and very few who would take Miles (or Kenyon Martin, maybe) right now. It’s really uncanny, and I just can’t believe that Isiah’s still got this job and is making these decisions. There’s no sarcasm in that statement. It is simply a supremely strange thing to have witnessed all the witless deals this guy has made over the last 18 months.
Zeke may have something here: Eddy Curry, Jamal Crawford, D. Miles, and the dog-fight promoter are all physically gifted guys that have never consistently played well. There is the possibility one of these players becomes an all-star one to two years from now. It might never happen too. I am just loving the Knicks going down in flames this year. I say the NBA moves the franchise to Puerto Rico or Anchorage, somewhere the fans know ball.