Posted by djsunyc:
Posted by PresIke:
This forum has been turning more and more into the place of relative impatience, selective memory/reasoning, and the negative spin of news despite any evidence to the contrary.
I understand we have gone through years of bad play, but so have many NBA teams before us. It's quite understandable to be frustrated, but ever wonder if this frustration jades one's ability to rationally analyze the team? I think it did for me for a while, but since the beginning of this year I've tried to enjoy things more rather than bemoan over every possible minor example that might support a statement that is generally unsupported (i.e. the Knicks are better without Curry on the floor...or Marbury...or Ewing).
P.S. I'm not saying that there is anything wrong with criticizing the team, but those who spend every waking moment trying to find ways to do so possess little credibility, from my point of view.
what exactly is objective analysis? and what credibility are you seeking? credibility from posters? what does that mean? does that mean we actually know what we're talking about? b/c that would be the premise. word of advice, NONE of us have any credibility and NONE of us know what we're talking about.
with that said, here's some more non-credibility from my end...
the players on this team are offensive minded. steph can score. francis can score. frye can score. nate can score. and they're best when they can just score when they want to. no thinking involved. just react and do what they want to do naturally. but with eddy in the game, they have to force the ball down low. they have to castrate their own abilities to make it work with eddy. steph just can't score when he wants to. same goes for francis, nate and the others. it's not in their inherent natural ability to just dump it to the post and wait. now, i'm not saying what's the right way to run an offense or not, but it seems like the other players on the roster are hurt or "held back" scoring wise when eddy is the focal point of the offense. so if you want to make eddy the focal point of the offense, then there has to be some significant changes on the roster to accomodate for that. more guys that are willing to just wait for the kick out.
and if you want to talk about ewing, the answer is YES, that team WAS better off without ewing b/c the rest of the team's strengths were being hindered b/c they had to wait for ewing to go into his move. it was not an optimization of the team's skills. the difference between ewing and curry is that at least ewing plays defense and still helps the team out on another end of the court. curry, on the other hand, if not scoring is 110% absolutely USELESS out there. and if the team's offense is actually BETTER with curry OFF the court, then it's not that far a leap to think this team may be better off without eddy.
[Edited by - djsunyc on 03-18-2007 3:53 PM]
Su, I am not going to try and define objective analysis because it will most likely end in a losing battle, yet I will say that I am not perfectly objective either. But the certainty that some of us have with our own analysis comes across to me as unfair to the Knicks, and fans sound foolish wfor even making an attempt to show some positive signs. My point is that those who seem to dish out negativity have not seemed to make much effort to critically think about their own point of view or criticisms, especially when we see consistent patterns of negative comments based on small samples of data.
Sure, none of us are "experts" but none of us are "idiots" either. That undermines our own intelligence as observers and fans, many of whom seem to have strong basketball knowledge and passion for the Knicks/b-ball. I disagree with the post-modernist view that since no one can be objective so no one's view has any value. If that was the case then we wouldn't be able to agree upon anything in the world. That's where evidence comes in, and self-awareness, which involves critically examining one's own views.
I disagree that the Knicks HAVE to "castrate" their abilities because of Curry, and I think most of the players are smarter than you give them credit for. My feeling is that it is an adjustment that they have learned/are learning to adapt to, so it may seem as though the team "plays better" without Curry for stretches, but in the long run it is likely not going to work, because most of those guys you listed rely on lower percentage shots. Why do teams keep looking for big man who can post up if it means that it is going to "ruin" a team with other scorers? We haven't even had one season with Curry as a the man guy and we're declaring that the team is better without him? That seems like a panic move to me, and fortunately (in my view) those who think this are not coaching this team.
Will it be in the teams interest to make sure Curry learns that while he should be the main guy that there are going to be times when those other guys will use their abilities to the team's advantage? Absolutely. I think that Marbury, in general, this season has done a good job of showing this. Sometimes he scores 8 points, other times he scores 30. He's bought into the team game, and I think most have. We have a lot of other young players who I think are learning, and patience is required, as is the case in any teaching situation. If you panic this can cause more damage than help.
As for Ewing, I think what happened was that the Knicks were never able to get him a 2nd truly reliable star (Starks, for all of his greatness was not it) to pair with him after Bernard, and when they got guys like Spree and Alan was after he had already ingrained in his head that he had to be "the man." Problem was the Knicks also did well with him when he was buying into the new situation during the 1999 playoff run before he got injured. If the Knicks had a healthy Ewing do you think our chances to win against the Spurs would have been less or more? I don't think any fan can be honest with themselves (unless they were in the die hard "Good Riddance" -- a la Mark Berman and the Post -- crew) and say that we had a better team without Ewing. The team was able to run, but beat the Spurs? No, because in a half court game the Knicks couldn't win. The current team would be similar to that '99 team in style but struggle against teams like the Spurs. They were also able to run because the competition was different. Indiana was an old, slow team. Now, most teams are not old and slow, and can compete in a fast break type of game. That's why having Curry on the floor makes us BETTER not worse.
Like it is an adjustment for many current Knicks such as Marbury (who's adapted pretty well) and Francis (less so) to play with a post player it was also the case for Ewing to work with the new high energy guys in '99, one of whom couldn't even break the rotation and publicly resented by Van Gundy because it meant trading Oak (Camby) and the other who was 6th man and adjusting to a new team that played SLOWDOWN offense after playing run and gun. Van Gundy only played the both together for significant minutes because of injury. Was Ewing part of the reason? Sure, but in the Miami series and early in the Indiana series those guys all played together and well.
[Edited by - PresIke on 03-18-2007 4:36 PM]Forum Po Po and #33 for a reason...
3/19/2007 12:13 AM