With the recent distractions that have kept me busy the last couple of days now in the past, it's time to put the Knicks 06-07 season in the past, too. We'll do our offseason preview and discussion of what moves the Knicks should make tomorrow. We at SML like to be proactive; we hate people that speak with thru the 20/20 hindsight, but can't see the wall in front of their face. Voice your opinions now, so that when that player you wanted to acquire turns out to be, well, Marbury, you won't be able to claim you could be a better GM.
But first, let's quickly review the Knicks season, which still has three games left, but is officially done. The players all seem to understand, thankfully, that this season was not a success:
"I think everything is based upon making the playoffs." said Marbury. "Did we grow this year as a team? Yeah. I would say we grew as a team, but not making the playoffs, that's not good."
That's how I think all Knicks fans feel, or should feel. There was definitive progress, yes. The Knicks will be about 10 games better than they were last season. That alone represents a big improvement, and at the same time it alone fails to properly convey the amount of improvement we saw this year.
With many predicting nothing but the worse for the Knicks this season, they started off poorly, going 4-9 to start the year. Predictions are a funny business, though. We saw quite a few predictions that had the Nets as the best team in the Eastern Conference, and the Raptors as the worst. 93% of GMs predicted the Nets to win the East (other votes: one for the 76ers, one for the Celtics).
Their poor start included losses at home in six of the first seven games, in some part due to the nasty reception from a booing home crowd that spent the offseason reading the newspapers and hearing about how much the Knicks suck. They opened the season with only one win in their first 8 games at home.
But after their 4-9 start, they started finding a groove. David Lee emerged as a force off the bench, along with Jamal Crawford. On November 24th, Lee played more than 30 minutes for the first time since the opener (a triple-OT game against the Grizzlies); he earned the time by playing well in his limited minutes to that point. He had 11 points and 13 rebounds (and 8 assists, oddly) in a Knicks blowout win over the Celtics that lifted their record to 5-9. From that point on he averaged over 30 minutes per game for the rest of the season.
The Knicks went 26-26 over the next 52 games. They were consistently .500. They were 2-2 for the rest of November; 7-9 in December (including those exciting wins against Utah, Charlotte and Detroit, plus a win over the Bulls); 7-8 in January with big victories against Miami and the Lakers; 6-5 in February (beating the Lakers and Heat again). However, on Feb 23rd, in a tight victory against the Bucks, David Lee injured himself and would play only 31 minutes the rest of the season.
The Knicks adjusted, and after losing to the Nets on Feb 25th, they beat Miami on the 26th. That game would be Jamal Crawford's last game of the season. Crawford took with him 18 points per game along with 4.5 assists.
The Knicks continued to hold on, losing to Boston but then winning big games against the Warriors and Hawks. They lost a tough game to the Sonics on March 6th, in which despite trailing for most of the game, they had a huge fourth quarter to catch up, but lost when Stephon Marbury missed a free throw with a second left that would have tied the game. That was also the last time Quentin Richardson would contribute in a game. He took with him 13 ppg, 7 rebounds, and much need team defense. He also left the Knicks without a real perimeter threat, other than Marbury.
Injuries don't matter? With three/fifths of their top six missing, the Knicks called back Steve Francis, who was this close to being brought out. He hit a big shot to win the game in Washington and keep the Knicks playoff hopes alive.
But you know what happens next: The injuries take their toll on the Knicks depth, and go 3-14 down the stretch (with two more losses looming). So what do we take out of the Knicks 32-win season?
Progress. Not enough, but some. The young players, with the exception of Frye, all took a step up. Watching Curry from the beginning of the season up until now, he has added new moves and improved his offense. Lee has become a valuable player. Crawford showed with his 50 point explosion against the Heat how dangerous he can be. The injuries allowed Balkman to quiet those that laughed at his selection in the past draft.
The preseason prediction we made was that they would win 37-40 games. They were right on target until they got blindsided by the lose of 40 ppg, 20 rpg, 10 apg. Those kinds of numbers are hard to replace - ask the Wizards. Still, we are glad they at least got to 32; our preseason bet was heavy on the over for number of wins by the Knicks this year - 31.5. Man are we glad it wasn't 32.5, or we would be sweating right now.
FYI: Our other two bets - the under on the Grizzlies wins - 38.5; and the under on the Pacers wins - 43.5. We were sweating out the Pacers for a long time, who were 29-24 right at the All-Star break, but then they tanked with flair. Hey, what's their excuse? At least the Knicks can blame injuries!
Finally, here are some videos of the high and low points of the season:
David Lee's tip to win the game against the Bobcats (my favorite part is the fans talking sh*t to Michael Jordan after the shot):
And the fight against the Nuggets:
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Yeah, the Steve Francis thing was totally a Larry Brown transaction forced upon Isiah; that's one of the reasons Isiah doesn't want him on the team - if he could give him away for anything, he would have. I mean, Jerome James sucks, too, but you don't see Isiah sending him to Houston "to rehab", or offering him a buyout just to get rid of him. It's clear he is not an Isiah pickup.
As for the ability to get better, I addressed that in my next post, but I think that this group, if it stay healthy, should be a .500 team next season.
Bottom line, under Larry Brown, who you and everyone else has said, completely sabotaged the season for the Knicks in '05-'06 the team won 23 games. Under Isiah this year, when the team has supposedly tried to win, they won 32 games. How many games did Brown's tank-job cost the team, 5-10? So where's the improvement.
By your own logic, all things being equal, getting rid of Larry Brown alone should've meant a 5-10 game difference in last year's record to this year's record. Even if they weren't ravaged by injuries to mediocre players they weren't going to do any better than 37 wins.
What points to a .500 record next year? A stretch in the middle of the season where they played .500 ball? If you ask me the 4-9 start, and complete surrender at the end of the season are more indicative of what this team is made of.
And it's no blessing in disguise that the Knicks didn't protect this year's draft pick. They would've had a top-five pick in what could be the deepest draft ever. They'd have a shot at Greg Oden. According to your math, they won't even be in the O.J. Mayo lottery next year.
What's more indicative of how the Knicks should do next season: A 4-9 start when they were still getting the taste of Larry Brown out of their mouths, still hadn't figured out their rotation (again, notice that when David Lee started getting 30 minutes, the season turned around), and were getting booed at home due to the anger leftover from the season before? Or a 52-game stretch in the middle of the season in which they played almost every team in the NBA, and had their players and rotation set? Or the last month of the season, when they were "ravaged by injuries", to what you call mediocre players (perhaps), but whom also happen to be 4/5th of their starting rotation, plus another key component in their rotation? Is that suppose to be indicative of their season?
If so, should the Wizards expect to suck next season, based on how their team has done down the stretch with injuries to Arenas and Butler? Is the Wizards' 101-68 loss to the Bulls yesterday indicative of what they should expect to accomplish next season?
And the lottery protection thing simply illustrates that no one knows what the worst case scenario really is. After all, if you are right, and the Knicks .500 stretch for more than half the season is just an anomaly, then next year's pick could be a top-5, right? And a top-5 pick next year is worth more than a top-2 pick in last year's draft, in my opinion.
The Wizards lost good players, and replaced them with bad players in their rotation. The Knicks lost bad players and replaced them with equally bad players in their rotation, there's a difference.
Those games they lost in the beginning of the season were games they would've lost without the handicap of recovering from the larry brown damage (how long is the rehab for that illness by the way?) Whether Lee was in the lineup or not. So fine, you want to throw out the end of the season, that's what, a 30-35 record, over 65 games, which projects out to a 37-45 record.
You can use that as your baseline if you want, but I think the way this team has folded up shop, even in the face of injuries, is very indicative of the spine, or lack thereof, of this team. Therefore a better indicator of things to come.
Plenty of teams have been in situations like the Knicks this year, and worse, due to injuries and suspensions. See the Pacers team you love to rip apart when they were missing half of their team for half the season after the Pistons brawl a couple of years ago. They still made the playoffs. The Knicks haven't lost their "superstar" Curry's waddled out there for every one of these games. If he's so good, why can't he carry the team to a win or two?
first of all, i like how you use the pronoun 'we' instead of 'i'. Its got a little deadspin feel to it, i think im gonna steal that from you.
More importantly, the knicks did improve this season but its gonna be near impossible for them to continue this level of improvment in the future beacuse their future resources are so thin. They have zero cap space and my Bulls have their lottery pick this year. And for all the bashing everyone does on Isiash, the brother can draft a little bit.
But then again maybe its a good thing the knicks dont have cap space otherwise youd be seeeing isiah handing vince carter a #15 jersey after signing him to a max contract. Complete with a quote like "It's crazy enough that it just might work", or whatever he said after they traded for Stevie Franchise.