And look who the starting PG is. Not to mention the stiff backup center. Let me guess, they're just a bunch of haters too.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/multimedia/photo_gallery/2005/10/19/gallery.allpoison/content.1.html

social proof is always a really impressive rhetorical device.

Why is KVH poison? He hasn't lived up to his #2 pick status but that doesn't make him poison.

The team they put out there would probably win a championship. But... they make good points about the character of some of these players. I think the argument against James is a little weak. He's overpaid, not sure if I'd call him poison. As for Marbury, I do think it's interesting how well the teams do AFTER getting rid of him... but he can turn that all around the next few years if the Knicks do well.

As for the Keith Van Horn comment. That's just a silly statement. Tim Thomas belongs there because he's the kind of player that absolutely destroys a team's chemistry and he's a lazy SOB. Van Horn is a hard worker, who, as Isles said, just was picked too high at #2.

screw Sports Illustrated and everybody affilated with them. They should be at the next Player Hater of the year awards. All they do is Hate, hate, Hate, Hate, Hate...........

Posted by islesfan:

Why is KVH poison? He hasn't lived up to his #2 pick status but that doesn't make him poison.

Easy. Check out CNNSI's take on Webber:

On paper Webber is a dream -- a good rebounder with outside range, and a deft and willing passer. But when someone as talented as Webber gets traded by three teams, that smacks of someone with too much baggage for teams to build around long term.

So, if someone gets traded three times, that means the guy's a poison. Guess what, KVH has been traded five times. Therefore, he must make Webber look like a saint.

Do I believe that? No, of course not. The number of times a player has been traded is not a good index for how much of a 'poison' that player is. But that doesn't stop media hardheads and their unquestioning throngs of sheepish followers from using such simple-minded measures to come to judgments of players about whom they really know much less than they think.

How Antoine Walker, aka Chuckmaster General, is not on that team, is very hard to fathom. Posting all of these CNNSI articles today did serve one purpose though. It eliminated CNNSI as a legitimate source for basketball opinions.

Why is it when anyone is critical of the knick players its bogus?

Isiah got "poisoned" talent at a discount. Otherwise they are not available. I wouldn't say Marbs history is all that inaccurate.

And when he is sucessful he will be hailed as being able to turn it around once presented with a proper support of players!

Our rookies are not projected to be "impact" players nor does Larry have any history of them being substantial on the team. I do think one of the three will end up being so, but a "PRESEAON" list will always have its inacurate claims.

Posted by boomann:

Why is it when anyone is critical of the knick players its bogus?

um......maybe it has something to do with the fact that this is ultimateknicks.com, just a wild guess but you tend to have a lot of people partial to the knicks running around ultimateknicks.com. Maybe if this was ultimatebulls.com we wouldn't react like this.

Oh, I just thought diverse views makes for more interesting discussion.

Or I was just smarter than every one else.

Really, imagine Marbs, TT, and jerome really being poison! What a stretch!

They forgot Sam Cassell.

Latrell Sprewell anyone. Well I guess you gotta get on a team before you can poison them. What about Danny Fortson, Tony Allen, Rafer Alston, Bonzi Wells and the rest of those cancers that should be in fornt of Marbs and james. What has James ever done to get into the top 10 cancers?

Seriously, this list did miss out on some big ones. How about Zach Randolph and Ruben Patterson? You're telling me Webber is a bigger cancer than Randolph? Then again, Webber has been traded three times while Zach is still on the team that drafted him, which must mean that Webber is much worse.