Marbury-Francis Pairing May Decide Knicks Season
By HOWARD BECK
GREENBURGH, N.Y., Oct. 26 — The course of the Knicks’ season may well depend on a player the front office did not want and a backcourt that seemingly no one outside Madison Square Garden thinks will work. The experiment begins next week.
Coach Isiah Thomas confirmed the obvious on Thursday, saying that four-fifths of his lineup is effectively set: Steve Francis and Stephon Marbury will be backcourt partners, alongside Eddy Curry, Channing Frye and a small forward to be named.
It is the Marbury-Francis pairing that will draw the most scrutiny when the Knicks open the season Wednesday in Memphis.
Thomas insists the tandem can work. Francis and Marbury scoff at suggestions that their games are too similar to mesh. But they have had scant opportunities to silence the doubts raised by opposing coaches, scouts and players.
When the Knicks close out the exhibition season Friday night against the Nets, it will mark just the third time that Francis and Marbury have played together this month. Minor injuries kept one or the other on the bench in the Knicks’ other three games.
It is difficult to evaluate their preseason performances together; their playing time has been limited, opponents often held out their star players and Thomas has experimented with his lineups, as most N.B.A. coaches do in October.
But it bears noting that Francis’s best performance this month came Tuesday night, while Marbury rested a sore foot. Playing alongside Jamal Crawford, Francis collected 13 points, 6 assists and 3 rebounds in his first 21 minutes against the Philadelphia 76ers.
Neither Francis nor Marbury — both former All-Stars with 20-point, 10-assist potential on any night — has had a typical performance this month. Playing as a tandem could mean that neither one will post such numbers this season. Thomas’s offensive philosophy also calls for more ball and player movement, and less dominance of the ball by a point guard.
This motion-oriented offense, Thomas has reasoned, will eliminate any concerns about how two scoring point guards will share the ball. It is tougher, however, to dismiss the concerns on defense. Marbury is listed at 6 feet 2 inches, Francis at 6-3. One of them will have to defend shooting guards, most of whom stand between 6-5 and 6-8.
“That will be the test,” Thomas acknowledged recently. “We have to do some things team-wise within our scheme to cover up for the deficiencies that they’ll have on the defensive end.”
The Knicks could resolve the height issue by starting Crawford (6-5) or Quentin Richardson (6-6). Both are natural shooting guards, and both were acquired at one point to be the starter alongside Marbury.
Crawford and Richardson have also been the two biggest standouts in the preseason. Crawford is averaging a team-high 16.6 points, 3.4 assists and 3.0 rebounds. He also leads the team in free-throw attempts (7.6 per game). Richardson, a disappointment last season, is averaging 10.8 points, 4.4 rebounds and 1.4 steals. Among the guards, he is probably the Knicks’ best defender.
Thomas reiterated Thursday that his lineup and rotation will change throughout the Knicks’ first 15 to 20 games. For now, however, he is going with the path of least resistance. Francis made it clear last spring that he expected to start and play a major role this season. Marbury, a starter throughout his career — and Thomas’s signature acquisition — surely expects the same. Not insignificantly, they are two of the highest-paid Knicks, with Marbury earning $17.3 million this season and Francis $15.1 million. There would certainly be some fallout if Thomas moved either one to the bench.
The Knicks created this quandary when they obtained Francis from Orlando, in a deal for Penny Hardaway and Trevor Ariza, eight months ago. Call it the final curse of Larry Brown.
It was Brown who pushed the team to acquire Francis. Brown suggested then, with great enthusiasm, that Marbury and Francis could be a modern-day version of the Knicks’ legendary backcourt of Walt Frazier and Earl Monroe. But Brown rarely played Marbury and Francis together. Marbury has since vocalized what others in the organization suspected — that Brown wanted Francis so he could either trade or waive Marbury. Instead, Francis bonded with Marbury, and Brown soured on Francis.
So now it is up to Thomas — who reluctantly acquired Francis, and then reluctantly succeeded Brown as coach — to make the Francis-Marbury tandem work. Beyond that, Thomas must also find a way to keep all of his guards and swingmen happy.
One possible solution: frequent use of small lineups. Thomas has experimented with three- and four-guard lineups throughout the preseason. The N.B.A.’s recent crackdown on hand-checking on the perimeter has also shifted the advantage toward fleet-footed guards.
So, in the rosiest of scenarios, the Knicks’ oft-criticized surplus of score-happy guards could become an asset. And a series of acquisitions that seemed redundant at the time might somehow make sense when Thomas at last puts his coaching stamp on the team. The experiment begins Wednesday.
REBOUNDS
Stephon Marbury, who was held out of Tuesday night’s exhibition game to rest a sore foot, will play in Friday’s preseason finale. ... Jared Jeffries, who broke his left wrist two weeks ago, will be re-examined Monday. He is expected to miss the first month of the season. ... In the N.B.A.’s annual survey of general managers, 11 percent (3 of the 28 who responded) predicted the Knicks will be the most improved team this season. ... Two general managers, or 7 percent, named Eddy Curry as the player most likely to have a breakout season. ... No Knicks player received votes for being the best at his position. ... Jackie Butler, the center who left the Knicks to sign with San Antonio, was named by two general managers as the “most underrated player acquisition” of the off-season.
10/26/2006 11:41 PM
