i think we need to discontinue this failed Marbury experiment & just move forward from here on out w/o him... before the Marbury supporters accuse me of ragging on Marbury again, just hear me out... i've been very complimentary towards Steph this season for how he's matured & been able to play w/in a team concept, but it's clear to me he'll never be able to lead this franchise to the level of success we're all looking for.

my ideal scenario is to start Jamal at the PG & sign a bigger, more physical G who can D up like DeShawn Stevenson to start alongside him... for the front court, i think drafting a shotblocking stud like Sean Williams to play in the frontcourt alongside Eddy Curry & D Lee makes the most sense for this roster as well, w/Balkman & Nate as the energizers off the bench... hopefully Q can stay healthy to contribute a good amount of minutes, but even if he can't, Mardy's a decent option to provide some D in a reserve role w/Malik providing some veteran leadership & jersey tugging shenanigans in the low post to round out the regular rotation... Turd & Jefferies would be the end of the bench guys to round out the roster since they have too many years left on their deals to be tradeable at this point regardless.

i would seriously look to trade Frye & Marbury this offseason, as well as Francis if possible... obviously trading Francis is a longshot, so i'd be willing to use the buyout option to get Francis off the roster... his presence on this team is not helping this team to improve... for Frye, i think the Knicks need to try & get a future 1st rounder from a traditionally bad team like the Hawks for example & move on... the pick would probably turn out to be mid-high lottery & Isiah would have that chip in his holster to use in a deal if a stud player becomes available at the trade deadline next season... or if he can't get a high pick from a bad team like the Hawks, i think he could probably look to turn Channing into 2 late 1st rounders from a team that has multiple picks in this year's draft (like the Sixers who have 3 where he can reunite w/LB, who liked Channing all along & who he played very well for last year)... if you could do that, you could then pay off the Suns who we still owe a protected 1st round pick from the original Marbury trade & be done w/that obligation once & for all... it's time to wipe the slate w/the trade that brought Marbury here & move forward w/the youth we have now.

Marbury's shown he can play some D this year & be unselfish, but he's never going to lead this team to glory, i think that much is pretty clear... if he's playing the best ball of his Knicks' career now & they're still floundering w/our young guys like Eddy & Channing still struggling to find their game, just where is the upside to continue w/that experiment? at least w/Jamal you have a guy who clicks very well w/our main scoring option in Curry... you can build around that w/defensive players who can hit open shots, & you might start seeing a foundation for something good down the road... Marbury just isn't the guy to lead us anywhere, as well as he's played this season... if Isiah can trade him this offseason, that would be the best move he could ever make for the future of this franchise IMO.

I'll be honest TMS, I don't think we can go with anyone in our backcourt. Maybe Nate OR Mardy as backups, but that's really all. Francis is just a bad player and dribbles too much, and Marbury, while he's been good, just doesn't have much more of a future with this team, and while I like Crawford, he's just too wild of a player and not the greatest decision maker to be a fulltime point guard. He has too much of a scorers mentality anyway, besides when he's hooking up with Curry. Crawford and Marbury would be better suited for other teams. I think we should just build a team where you KNOW everyone is gonna give it their all on both ends every night. That's why Curry is also a trade candidate in my eyes.
You just don't know what he's gonna give you in certain aspects of the game.

Keep Lee, Balkman, and either Nate or Mardy. Maybe both, pending on your starting backline, but most likely not. Other than that, you don't know what everyone else is gonna give you, and Q is just too unhealthy.

That's why I'm so down on this team. Isiah seems in love with all these guys, yet they aren't winning ball players.

I was also thinking the same thing... I'd rather have Crawford play the PG, I like him better at PG actually.

Posted by SupremeCommander:

Posted by Bonn1997:

I feel the same way about Lazy Eddy

Has anyone seen "The Curry Line" on Yahoo Fantasy Sports? (I find it hilarious people actually think he's good.)

Eddy Curry Line Update
The Eddy Curry Line was originally established to put a spotlight on how truly anemic Curry's overall fantasy line is. The standard: a player must average more turnovers than assists, steals, and blocks combined – in order to qualify, a player must have appeared in at least half of his team's games and averaged at least 25 minutes of playing time.

EDDY CURRY LINE – BEST AND WORST
TOP 5 (Worst) GP MPG POS NEG RATIO
Eddy Curry 67 34.9 120 230 0.52:1
Hakim Warrick 69 25.6 126 138 0.91:1
Zach Randolph 65 35.7 196 203 0.97:1
Desmond Mason 68 34.6 172 175 0.98:1
Mark Blount 67 31.8 138 134 1.03:1
BOTTOM 5 (Best) GP MPG POS NEG RATIO
Shane Battier 69 36.7 278 60 4.63:1
Ben Wallace 67 34.9 407 88 4.63:1
Marcus Camby 57 33.3 436 100 4.36:1
Jason Williams 47 30.1 285 66 4.32:1
Chauncey Billups 57 36.8 508 119 4.27:1

GP = games played
MPG = minutes played per game
POS = positive stats accumulated to-date (assists + steals + blocks)
NEG = turnovers to-date
RATIO = amount of positive stats per turnover

Matt Buser is a Yahoo! Sports fantasy expert. Send Matt a question or comment for potential use in a future column or webcast.

http://fantasysports.yahoo.com/analysis/news?slug=mb-bigpic_032307&prov=yhoo&type=lgns&league=fantasy/nba

I know fantasy sports are a terrible way to gauge a player's real life value, but in this case the statistic does wonders in showing just how one dimensional curry is. He offers nothing of value besides inside scoring, as we all know how terrible he is on the defensive side of the ball. Bottom line is he had a meause of worthlessness named after him...

Almost any stat you look at about his impact on the game will indicate he's at best an average center. His strengths and weaknesses on offense cancel each other out and then we all know how he is on defense.

Posted by kam77:

Marbury can play, he still has two years left on his deal, and when he keeps his trash-talkin trap shut, he's nothing but a baller. why not keep him thru the end of his contract?

That's a given. He's not going anywhere.

"But what has endeared him to hardened Garden fans and especially coach Isiah Thomas is the game-to-game effort he has displayed this season. On a team in need of guidance, Marbury has shown toughness, leadership and concern for teammates, something he hadn't done since his arrival in 2004."

- George Willis

[Edited by - misterearl on 03-27-2007 08:58 AM]

There is no room for blaming marbury this season.

I think everyone, including marbury found out that marbs is not a good distributer. What we did find out is that marbs is a ball player and he is a warrior. Knicks still have him signed a few years and he has been a big bright spot dispite his slow start.

What marbs needs is an understudy. Mardy Collins to me is a shooting guard. I like the guy a lot. His defense and all around game is gonna be an asset. Still knicks need to locate a true pass first point to stick on the bench to be the understudy.

As far as craw being the point? I don't like it. I like the marbs and craw backcourt. I just wish craw would figure out what a good shot is. Craw is a hell of a player, its just he takes too many bad shots and forgets how good his handle is sometimes.

Buying out francis is the only way to go. Just cut the loss and forget about it.

Posted by kam77:

Marbury can play, he still has two years left on his deal, and when he keeps his trash-talkin trap shut, he's nothing but a baller. why not keep him thru the end of his contract?

i'm not knocking him at all for the effort he's put forth this year, or even blaming him for this team's shortcomings... he's shown toughness, maturity & played the best ball of his Knicks' career (i've said that over & over this season every chance i get)... but the fact is even through all that, this team still stinks & some of our key young players don't seem to have any synergy w/him at all when he's dominating the ball on the offense... that's not a good thing for our future going forward... my point is just how far can this guy take this team if they still stink when he's playing his best ball? shouldn't we be focusing on how to make our young guys better? if the plan is to build around Curry, then we need to have Jamal getting him the ball downlow, & if that's the case, then we need a bigger, more physical defensive G who can play alongside Jamal in the backcourt along w/a stud shotblocker down low to balance things out.

if, on the other hand, the plan is to try & milk Marbury for whatever he's worth until his contract runs out, then we should just mortgage the future, trade off Curry, Frye & whatever else you have to in order to get KG or JO in here to play alongside him, & go for broke... staying in limbo & not committing either way is only going to keep this team in mediocrity for the next few years... what good does that do?

Posted by joec32033:

Ideally, I would like to see us trade Frye and our pick to trade up for Jeff Green-

PG-Crawford
SG-Marbury
SF-Green
PF-Lee
C-Curry

top 4 off the bench- Q, Collins, Nate, Morris.

That has to be the plan. Knicks have to target a team that needs a big man. If a team misses out on the oden sweepstakes, its gonna be tempting to able to get frye and still have the bulls pick.

Posted by TMS:

i think we need to discontinue this failed Marbury experiment & just move forward from here on out w/o him... before the Marbury supporters accuse me of ragging on Marbury again, just hear me out... i've been very complimentary towards Steph this season for how he's matured & been able to play w/in a team concept, but it's clear to me he'll never be able to lead this franchise to the level of success we're all looking for.

my ideal scenario is to start Jamal at the PG & sign a bigger, more physical G who can D up like DeShawn Stevenson to start alongside him... for the front court, i think drafting a shotblocking stud like Sean Williams to play in the frontcourt alongside Eddy Curry & D Lee makes the most sense for this roster as well, w/Balkman & Nate as the energizers off the bench... hopefully Q can stay healthy to contribute a good amount of minutes, but even if he can't, Mardy's a decent option to provide some D in a reserve role w/Malik providing some veteran leadership & jersey tugging shenanigans in the low post to round out the regular rotation... Turd & Jefferies would be the end of the bench guys to round out the roster since they have too many years left on their deals to be tradeable at this point regardless.

i would seriously look to trade Frye & Marbury this offseason, as well as Francis if possible... obviously trading Francis is a longshot, so i'd be willing to use the buyout option to get Francis off the roster... his presence on this team is not helping this team to improve... for Frye, i think the Knicks need to try & get a future 1st rounder from a traditionally bad team like the Hawks for example & move on... the pick would probably turn out to be mid-high lottery & Isiah would have that chip in his holster to use in a deal if a stud player becomes available at the trade deadline next season... or if he can't get a high pick from a bad team like the Hawks, i think he could probably look to turn Channing into 2 late 1st rounders from a team that has multiple picks in this year's draft (like the Sixers who have 3 where he can reunite w/LB, who liked Channing all along & who he played very well for last year)... if you could do that, you could then pay off the Suns who we still owe a protected 1st round pick from the original Marbury trade & be done w/that obligation once & for all... it's time to wipe the slate w/the trade that brought Marbury here & move forward w/the youth we have now.

Marbury's shown he can play some D this year & be unselfish, but he's never going to lead this team to glory, i think that much is pretty clear... if he's playing the best ball of his Knicks' career now & they're still floundering w/our young guys like Eddy & Channing still struggling to find their game, just where is the upside to continue w/that experiment? at least w/Jamal you have a guy who clicks very well w/our main scoring option in Curry... you can build around that w/defensive players who can hit open shots, & you might start seeing a foundation for something good down the road... Marbury just isn't the guy to lead us anywhere, as well as he's played this season... if Isiah can trade him this offseason, that would be the best move he could ever make for the future of this franchise IMO.

I agree with a lot here. But I'd be careful with the number of years that we give to free agents going forward. Its probably safer to just let Isiah work with the minor leaguers.

The plan with Steph has got to be to let him play out his contract and then reacess the situation. If he's healthly and still able to play at a high level and we have no other better PG option at that point in place I might consider re-uping him for another couple of years at reasonable money. And if he's really serious about winning here and spreading his ashes on the roof of the Garden when he dies and all that stuff, he'd agree. If he's proves to be unhealthy and really starts to show he's declining I say goodbye and I would have nothing but fond memories of the way the guy performed for us.

But we gotta start thinking about this now, not 2 years from now...