FanPost

Landry Fields - the real deal

For all of you lovers of the potential of Randolph and Gallo the truth will shortly become evident. Landry Fields is the real deal and Pringles cannot afford to dither away what may be his final year at the helm to play the potential game too much. I think he would dearly love to show off Landry to the rest of the league early on in the season.

Not only does starting Fields give the best chance of winning, but it also sheds a long overdue positive light on the Knick organization. If Landry manages to pull this off and we get some early wins, it could be the difference between a 30 and 50 win season. D'Antoni's contract would be renewed and guys like Gallo and Randolph could reach full potential more slowly and under less intense scrutiny.

More importantly if we as fans got behind Landry it could develop into one of those feedback loop kind of things. Some people thrive under pressure and others wilt. I think Landry will thrive and deserves this chance to prove himself, and after all these years in the wilderness we Knick fans deserve a seemingly untroubled, drug and alcohol free hero who could live up to and exceed our expectations on and off the court. I know it is hard to accept for some of you but this could actually happen. At very least in the next couple of days we are going to find out a lot more

As you may or may not know, I am a Landrophile, and have posted and commented many times on this subject.

On draft night Osborne wrote

The bad news: Donnie Walsh & co., relative to every other general manager, every draft analyst, and every common man (whose agendas are admittedly shaped by the first two), entirely overestimated not one, but both of our draft picks. Andy Rautins was not expected to be drafted any earlier than about pick #50, so the 12 spot reach for him is not exactly egregious. Strawberry Fields (sic) on the other hand, was not valued as a draft prospect in almost any circle, and for this reason among others (he's from Stanford), he should be stared at with brows raised.

I commented along with several others that I liked the pick.

I’m a lifelong Knick fan who lives out west so I get to see a lot of Pac 10 basketball and Fields was far and away the best player in this league.Admittedly the Pac 10 had a down year but it is still a major conference. I thought Fields was superior to Quincy Poindexter who went in the first round. Fields is a smart(Stanford), very athletic, and a great scorer. I like the pick and I think he will get major minutes.

In one post several weeks ago I asked the sacrilegious question "would we be better off starting Landry instead of Gallo?". My favorite answer follows.

Okay, real talk

1) Demoting Gallo to the bench after a few cold shooting nights in the preseason is insane. We know at the very least he is a solid 2-way player and one of the best 3pt threats in the league, good for 15ppg over the course of a long season. That alone earns him the starting SF spot, easily.

2) I like Landry, I really do, but if the latter of our 2nd round picks is getting heavy minutes or starting (!) on opening night as a rookie, we are well and truly screwed. There is a reason he was not on most people’s draft boards—his jump shot, ball handling, first step and lateral quickness are all somewhat suspect. At this point he looks like a high IQ player and great leaper with the capacity to learn and improve, but seriously, finding starting-caliber talents (or even rotation players) in the middle of the 2nd round is r-a-r-e. Projecting stardom for Landry Fields is setting yourself up for disappointment. Anointing him the best rebounder on the team (!), a future 20-10 all-star in the making (!!!) from the starting SG position (!!!!!) is waaaaay premature (if not outright delusional).

by flossy on Oct 19, 2010 4:42 AM HST

Since this is the eve of Fields surprising debut as a starter I am going to ask for your predictions on how you think he will do.I am gratified to see that more commenters and posters are lately jumping on the Landwagon..