Posted by Bonn1997:

If Steph, Jamal, Q, Lee, and Curry are our best five, I'd say they've missed an average number of games or maybe *fewer* than average for a team's top 5.

So you don't feel this team's injury situation has been that bad although not good. Obviously other teams have had it worst, correct?

Some quick estimates, i might be off a few games

Francis - Out most of the season
Robinson - Suspended 10 games, missed 5 games to flu
Jeffries - Injured to start first 20 games of the season. Suspended 5 games.
Frye - Injured early in the season and missed ten games.
Lee - Missing the last 25 games of the season
Crawford - Missing the last 25 games of the season

6 of your projected rotation guys, a few of them projected starters missing an average of 1/4 of the season each. Plus with Marbury being a warrior and playing through some pain, we haven't had the best of luck.

In comparison to other teams though... I can't sit here and complain about injuries. But i certainly won't downplay the effect they've had on us.

Posted by TMS:

MIA lost their best player for the season & are still playing the best ball of the season right now, so i don't see how you can choose which injuries are significant & which aren't... obviously having 2 players out who were key contributors like Jamal & D Lee doesn't help the Knicks' chances of winning games regardless of what the W-L record may indicate.

What was Miami doing when Shaq was out?

You're right to a degree because teams that have some depth figure out how to maintain and in some cases get better. The depth shows up while the main components do the same. The Knicks have depth supposedly so why isn't the depth matching up with the main components? Why are we hearing continual excuses? YOU CAN'T HAVE IT BOTH WAYS!!! The same fans that say "hey we wouldn't have lost such and such game if we had Lee or Crawford", need to realize other teams with key injuries can say the same thing and even to a greater degree. I also tried to make a point a few weeks back that sometimes it depends on which components are lost. I was debating with several fans about the significance of Nets injuries and the retort was "they still have Jason Kidd and Vince Carter so they shouldn't be losing that much", well The Knicks still have Marbury, Curry, Francis, Frye plus and adequate bench so shouldn't that be enough to overcome the injuries? Add to the fact the Knicks record was sub .500 when healthy.

[Edited by - TrueBlue on 03-16-2007 11:11 AM]

Posted by TrueBlue:

Posted by TMS:

MIA lost their best player for the season & are still playing the best ball of the season right now, so i don't see how you can choose which injuries are significant & which aren't... obviously having 2 players out who were key contributors like Jamal & D Lee doesn't help the Knicks' chances of winning games regardless of what the W-L record may indicate.

What was Miami doing when Shaq was out?

You're right to a degree because teams that have some depth figure out how to maintain and in some cases get better. The depth shows up while the main components do the same. The Knicks have depth supposedly so why isn't the depth matching up with the main components? Why are we hearing continual excuses? YOU CAN'T HAVE IT BOTH WAYS!!! The same fans that say "hey we wouldn't have lost such and such game if we had Lee or Crawford", need to realize other teams with key injuries can say the same thing and even to a greater degree. I also tried to make a point a few weeks back that sometimes it depends on which components are lost. I was debating with several fans about the significance of Nets injuries and the retort was "they still have Jason Kidd and Vince Carter so they shouldn't be losing that much", well The Knicks still have Marbury, Curry, Francis, Frye plus and adequate bench so shouldn't that be enough to overcome the injuries? Add to the fact the Knicks record was sub .500 when healthy.

[Edited by - TrueBlue on 03-16-2007 11:11 AM]

Clearly there is a difference between the Knicks and Miami (just using Miami, since they were brought up) First thing, Miami are the defending champions, we're not talking about the atlanta hawks. Why were they able to sustain Shaq's injury ? DWade, plus the sleu of veteran guys they have on their team. Why are they playing good now ? Shaq (the most dominate center in the games history) + the sleu of veteran players. Plus they are the defending champs. NJ is funny situation, because for most of the season, they had 2 superstars playing for them, RJ soon to be superstar got hurt and I can't remember if krystic is still out. Did it hurt them to lose these players ? Yes, because they did not have the other components you speak of. But then you look at vince and Kidd and wonder with those 2 + RJ coming back, their record should not be what it is.

To NY's injuries: and let me preface this with, all injuries are important to all teams. But considering what the players that we lost meant to our rotation, its huge. Jamal was our big time guy, Lee was a major part of the team and Q when healthy is also a big part of our rotation. At best NY is a team struggling to be a .500 team. The fact that we have an above .500 record since the all-star break says something about what kind of team we have. A comparable example is Boston, Pierce went down and they did not know to win without him. We are playing well for the most part without our guys.

if i were a GM, i'd take Kidd, RJ & Vince over our entire roster.

Posted by nixluva:

Obviously the aim of this thread is to once again slag on the Knicks somehow. I find it utterly ridiculous to suggest that the Knicks a team struggling to find an identitiy after last year, should not consider any injury to 3 or their top players as a serious problem. You can't ignore that Jamal who was avg'ing 17.9 ppg and 4.5 asts, was a MAJOR loss for this team. The intangibles being that he had the best chemistry with Curry. Then D. Lee who avg's a double double and is also a MAJOR part of this teams strength inside. His 60% FG and 11 rebs is a tough thing to replace. Q has been nowhere near 100% for a while and he's our top 3pt threat and another tough rebounder at 7 rebs a game. I think it's just crazy to try and make it seem like those losses aren't significant for this team.

My second post stated Knick injuries have not been a good thing.

Posted by kam77:

Techinically

He's still on the books, Allan Houston retired due to injuries and Isiah has been hurt by that more than anything.

Yup. The losses of Ewing and Houston killed this team, and it seems like certain fans refuse to believe that.

I think the better question is the difference in effect of losing players between the knicks and other teams. This team is fairly deep, I think alot deeper than most teams in general. We have a lot of players that are good replacements for other players(or pretty much the same player), and at times we seem to play better with less players.

However, I think losing Q is particularly difficult because his injury is on and off. I think this hurts the ability of our team to get used to playing with each other. The effect of losing Q for games would be less if he just got injured once and missed games in a bunch.

I think losing Lee is huge because he provides skills that no one on this team can replace. The only mildy good replacement is Balkman, and Isiah doesn't seem to want to give Balkman that many minutes so in practice balkman is a poor replacement. Additionally, Balkman is pretty raw offensively and needs to be developed more in order to be as effective as Lee.

Finally, the loss of Crawful is tough because he played so many minutes(and the team was used to playing with him). Also, Curry doesn't seem to be as effective without him. However, this loss is important only short-term and the team will adapt. At least, it should.

Posted by kam77:

Posted by BRIGGS:

No excuses--stop complaining. We've been very fortuante to be 6-1 in OT with a few other wins in regulation by the skin of our pants. certainly we have showed resolve.

I'll also leave it like this--aamare stoudemire from 2 years ago[and he sbetter than any knick now even with his injury] was worth more than the whole team put together. He was out the whole season--Phoenix had other injuries had many young new players and still won 60 games. Case closed.

Of course injuries can effect the w-l record but we dont have a David Robinsonm type player where it wouldnt truly put us out of whack we had a 130 mm $ payroll steve francis was a back up jalen rose was a back up[knicks decid to cut him?] injuries so what.

BI get the overall point, but think you could've come up with a better example. Using PHX as your example with Amare? They had this guy who won MVP that year. They also had Joe Johnson who is now, and deserved then, to be an All-Star. To say nothing of their glue guy, Shawn Marion. How can you bring up a juggernaut like the SUNS to make your point?

Actually you're still missing the point. It's not a bad example at all, it's probably one of the best you can use. The point is they lost a huge component from the make-up of their team AND STILL WON 55gms not 45, not 50, but 55. I bet if a wager was put on the table before the season Amare would be gone for the duration of it, while losing Joe Johnson to FA and Q via draft day trade the Suns still win 50+ gms most wouldn't have believed that.