Hall of Fame coach. Hall of Fame player turned General Manager. Sounds like a dream team. For the New York Knicks, though, it has turned into a nightmare. In his Atomic Sports Media debut, Angus Crawford breaks down all that ails this storied basketball team while also offering up a prescription that could soon put them back on the road to recovery.
It seems like a decade since the New York Knicks started 2006 with a six game winning streak. Since then, the team has lost 22 of its last 25 games, putting them perilously close to being the worst Knick team ever.
Any team capable of a winning streak with victories over Dallas, Phoenix and Cleveland should not be a historically bad team for one of the NBA’s oldest franchises. So why is this team so awful right now? Bad General Manager? Bad coaching? Like most things it is probably a combination of the two.
While bashing GM Isaiah Thomas is as popular as claiming you were Rick James in 2004, he has been getting an unfair amount of blame. Failing to protect the team’s first rounder in the Eddy Curry trade was pretty foolish, but after signing Larry Brown for $10 million a year, no one seriously thought it would be the number one pick overall.
His trades have killed their salary cap, and the Knicks will not be under it until the premiere of Real World 43, in Baghdad. However, unlike other teams, the luxury tax does not affect the Knicks, since their hegemonic TV network, Cablevision, can afford to take a loss on the Knicks.
Yet despite this unfair advantage over other NBA general managers, Isaiah has managed to put together a roster devoid of any cohesion. Imagine what a good GM like Isaiah’s former Detroit Pistons teammate, Joe Dumars, or former Larry Brown assistant, RC Buford, could do with the blank check Isaiah has been given . . . . (75 wins would not be out of the question.)
During one game the Knicks had Stephon Marbury, Steve Francis, Quentin Richardson, Maurice Taylor, and Curry on the floor. All of them are talented offensively, but on the court together they are absolutely awful. Curry and Taylor kept looking to post up at the same time (at least they were on different sides of the paint) while the other three swung the ball around the perimeter with no one looking to make a cut without the ball or throw it inside.
In fact, it is hard to get mad at the perimeter players when they do not feed the post. Even when they are getting triple teamed Curry and Taylor have no problem putting up a shot. That’s right, Maurice Taylor has been triple teamed and opposing defenses are smart enough to know he is not going to try to find his teammates. For the stat hungry out there, Taylor has 31 assists and Curry, aka Baby Shaq, has 14 this season. Not sure if that is more amazing or pitiful.
(Really, though, can we please stop the Shaq comparisons now? The only thing Eddy Curry probably does as well as Shaq is eat. Shaq use to dominate at both ends of the floor for entire games, not four minutes before picking up two offensive fouls in the first quarter. Curry will never be the passer that Shaq was during his career, and you can forget about the shot blocking, rebounding, and scoring too. So next time an announcer mentions Shaq and Curry in the same sentence, make sure they are talking about a new 78 piece chicken nuggets at McDonalds.)
It’s no secret that Isaiah did not fill the roster with “Larry Brown type players”, but that does not excuse a Hall of Fame coach for a record this poor. No matter how detrimental he is to the offense, Brown insists on playing Maurice Taylor over talented rookies Channing Frye and David Lee.
At times Frye and Lee have looked completely lost on defense, but they still play hard, which is not true of everyone on the roster. Both players actually look to move the ball, and Frye probably has the best jump shot on the team. Unless Larry knows Isaiah will trade Maurice Taylor and his expiring contract this summer, then this makes less sense than the Jerome James contract. (Actually that’s a lie, Jerome James is horrible. He deserves an entire column after the season – watch for it.)
Overall Brown’s lineup changes have been questionable at best. After David Lee started all six games of the winning streak, Brow inexplicably benched him; Lee also occasionally records the Does Not Play-Coach’s Decision, the most public – and humbling – of benchings.
Last week against Memphis, Qyntel Woods started while Jalen Rose earned the DNP causing Jalen to remark that 15 of his 16 DNPs have come from Larry Brown. The next game against Chicago, Rose started and Woods didn’t play. Nice.
(When the Knicks played Houston recently, ex-Rocket and Hall of Famer Clyde Drexler said that Qynetl Woods is capable of average 20 points, six rebounds, and eight assists a game. I had to listen to it three times and get one of my roommates to make sure I was not hallucinating. That’s better than some of Scottie Pippen’s best seasons. With insight like that, it makes you wonder why he is not coaching the University of Houston anymore.)
For the season, Brown has used 35 different starting lineups, and the over/under total is at a nice round 50. It’s hard for players to understand their roles, when the coach does not what their roles are. Each day Brown is becoming more like Junior Soprano. One day he is close to pulling off a hit on Tony to gain control of the family (Game 7 of the finals), and then before you know it he is driving to Newark in his pajamas looking for his dead brother (This whole season).
This season has been worse than the biggest cynic could have imagined. As crazy as it sounds, though, there is hope for the future.
Larry Brown and Isaiah Thomas have forgotten more about basketball than any Knicks fan has ever learned. Thomas had a good draft this year, and with a couple of moves for some role players, guys that are satisfied playing defense, rebounding, and moving the ball, they should be in the playoffs next year. And Brown should be able to reach Stephon Marbury next year. Remember he and Chauncey Billups were fighting well into their second season together before Chauncey became Mr. Big Shot.
Don’t worry Knicks fans: better days are ahead. Heck, next year cannot be worse than this year, can it?