“I mean, I love offense. Why wouldn’t I? I love him,” Wade told Newsday while in New York. “We’re in practice, I love [Portland Trailblazers coach] Nate McMillan, but I want to be on Mike D’Antoni’s team because Nate is preaching all defense and Mike is preaching all offense.”
D-Wade would be my next pick after LeBron in the 2010 free agency cornucopia of top-tier talent.
Some people may say 2010 is just a way to set the bar low (if those same people realize how low the bar has in fact been the past six-to-eight years remains to be seen) but I do think it is the smart thing to do at this point even if it means two more years of bad basketball, by the time those two years are up we could be a contender for the Atlantic division.
I’d rather have D-Wade in two years than Kobe. I really liked what I saw of D-Wade in the Olympics. Looks like his back has healed up well.
{ 11 comments… read them below or add one }
KnicksD,
How realistic is this?Why wouldn’t Miami sign him to the max. contract BEFORE the summer of 2010.Same goes with LBJ.I don’t see top level young superstars(LBJ,Wade,Bosh)leaving their teams.
This may be true for 2nd level superstars,example:Baron Davis,Elton Brand,Maggette,etc.
Guys like Kobe,LBJ and a health Wade aren’t going any where.That’s one of my problem with Walsh’s 2010 Dream plan.
DLT Knicks,
I hear you, but I don’t think it is a pipe dream like those who miss isiah.
For one, players want max dollars, look at what A-rod did with the Yankees, he opted out, and then resigned. Yes he did stay with new york, but had he been with any other team at that point, he would have been taken by new york because new york can outbid any other city when the cap isn’t in the way.
players want to play for the knicks, even now. players want to play for d’antoni, especially the players that just had a lifetime experience on the redeem team. players want their money too, of course. we may or may not get LeBron, but we will get somebody very, very good.
The old regime would have just kept spending and wasting on big names and big contracts. it would have gone on forever like that.
Doesn’t matter what industry you are in: you don’t have to sell New York to anybody. Not LeBron, not D-Wade, not Bosh, not Kobe.
The Knicks will get a all-star/mvp player in 2010. right now it is about getting the roll players that will tempt them to leave their teams.
new york city is the best city to play for, we are the best fans, all other cities are second place.
Scathing Isiah by
Glenn Minnis
New York Sports Examiner
from New York Sports Examiner
Glenn Minnis is a seasoned journalist who has covered sports and culture for well more than a decade at several major publications. His voice has been called as strong as it is unique.
Can you feel Isiah’s pain?
Much of the NYC hoops world has been in a state of euphoria since the installation of Mike D’Antoni as the new Knicks head coach. And I must admit for a moment there, I too, was caught up in the dizzying prospect of witnessing the rudiments of D’Antoni’s self-described “it takes only seven seconds to get off a good shot” offense up close and personal.
But then, in a one-man’s-paradise-is-another’s-torment sort of way, I thought of Isiah Thomas. Not so much Thomas the coach/GM of the last few seasons, mind you. But rather Isiah the man, and effusive spirit he once so seemed to embody.
I can recall a time a few years back when Thomas went out of his way — as few such high profile sports figures ever have over the course of my more than 10-year sportswriting career — to make certain I had everything I needed for a cover piece I’d been commissioned to do chronicling his purchase of the Continental Basketball Association. Coaches, players, even owners, Isiah made them all readily available to me, even going as far as to phone my home five times himself over just a few hours to make certain everyone was adhering to the game plan.
It was during one of those talks I got to know Thomas a bit outside the lines of the caricature much of the public now so routinely paints him in. We talked about our Chicago upbringings, our respective large families and, yes, we talked nonstop hoops.
Say what you will about Thomas’ tenure as coach/GM here, most still concede he knows the game as well as virtually anyone whose ever been around it. Thing is teaching it to others, imparting any of all you know and have done, requires a completely different skill set. And the deed of striving to pull that all off here in New York, New York, no less, simply adds a dimension not many of us can ever truly account for until being in the midst of.
So out went Isiah for parts unknown. And in from Phoenix comes Mike D’Antoni. Here’s hoping he doesn’t soon find himself yearning for one of those seamless nights in the desert.
The moment Knick fans start shedding a tear for Scott Layden’s NYC failures will be the first moment I start to feel sorry for Isiah Thomas.
I’m glad he’s finally gone. He’ll do well some place else, I’m sure, but it wasn’t ever going to happen for him with the Knicks.
The writer didn’t mention Isiah is still being paid to be a Knick as of this day.
Although the intent is clear, the writer also didn’t mention what happened to that CBA after Isiah took complete control over it.
I’m weary of anyone who says “here in New York, New York,” they’re either new to the area (this guy, I believe is from Chi), or they have too many Tony Bennett and Frank Sinatra records.
Somebody drinking too much hater aide.
Just let the damn past go!
Let the past go? You tell that to your pals still talking about taking bayless over gallinari.
look, you post an article about isiah on a knicks blog, after the past four years you can very well expect that it is fair game to discuss said article’s intrinsic merits.
haterade is a cop-out term people are using to try to erase the sad recent history of the new york knicks.
every year is a test to see who the real knick fans are. somebody you associate with said they’d quit following the knicks if and when isiah ever got fired. please inform that person I said they’re a punk-ass sellout pseudo-knicks fan.
I am down with the knicks now, just as I ever was.
If you call yourself “be a real fan” and then disappear when your team starts losing every 8 out of 10 games for three months, if you’re still talking about bayless over “a white player named gallinari,” or “don’t hate on isiah” after four years of bullshit Steve Francis, Jerome James, Penny Hardaway, Vin Baker and the rest, or “donnie walsh is too old and doesn’t know basketball”…
I’m glad this is America and we can choose to see things in a different way.
If Layden sucked (yes he did) then Isiah sucked just as bad (if not more so in terms of the win-loss column).
You talk about haters, you look at the current team and look at who is still showing up to support the new regime that has its work cut out for it in the years to come.
And for the rocket scientists that claim that donnie walsh is too old to know “today’s game,” you tell that to jerry colangelo, the man who built the 2008 redeem team from the ground up. colangelo is two years walsh’s senior.
jerry colangelo, coach k, mike d’antoni, donnie walsh. these people can be mentioned in the same breath because they have a track record that breeds success.
i liken isiah’s tenure in new york more to layden’s than to grunfeld’s, Checketts’ or anyone else.
there is little use going over this. there will always be wolves dressed up as knicks fans.
just know that new york city basketball doesn’t really focus much on “chicago grandeur”. we have our own New York City grandeur to pride ourselves on. I like chicago as a city, but I’ve hated chicago basketball since #23 started killing us in the early 90′s and prevented ewing from getting that ring he tried so hard to attain. so when a guy from chicago writes an article about another guy from chicago, it makes me stop and wonder if I should be letting them tell me how much isiah knows about basketball when i know what i saw every night the knicks played.
KnicksD,
I’m going to pass on the negative Isiah talk.I was for the moves he made,when he made them.Now,they seem all wrong and I don’t think that’s all his fault.I only hold him for the large contracts the current team is stuck with.
Getting back to the class of 2010 and the Knicks Dream.I do believe that players want to play here.I also beieve that:
1)Their current teams WILL OFFER the max to these players at on or before that summer.
2)Will we have the players to help LbJ and Wade to produce a Championship.I’m not sure if LBJ will put his championship dreams in the hands of Danilo and Duhon.Players want the money and the ring.
3)Although coach D’Antoni is well liked among the players,is his style of coaching the type that can produce a Champion.He doesn’t seem to peach defense.Phoenix won but,did not win the ring or even make it to the confernce finals.
We may need 2 superstars in 2010!!Will we have that kind of money?
dlt,
mike d’antoni’s system = redeem team = gold is ours again.
no d is an issue when you’re reaching for the finals.
we’re reaching for 30 wins having won just 23 in 2007-2008.
projected 2010 lineup
Rubio
wade
chandler (allstar at this point)
gallinari
bosh
Bench
dlee
Ewing jr
nash
Dantoni 8 man rotation right there
do I smell a dynasty?????!?!?
i like the way you think, thelegacy.
think big.
this is the big city.
we do it right and anything is possible.
especially if mr. stern has his say so.