oohah and newyorknewyork, you guys are focusing too much on what Brown asked of the players when the focus should have been on what they gave him. You guys might even think you're in agreement with each other on Brown but I don't think you are. Ohhah seems to want a run and gun up-tempo thing while nyny wants the old marbury dominated penetrate and dish that got us 33 wins last year.
I don't know what newyork newyork wants from the team in regards to a playing philosphy, but I know what I want first and foremost: Consistency. Without consistency no style of play can be successful because the players will always be uncomfortable.
Now to "run and gun". Nobody has ever seen me suggest a run and gun style. In this forum, that term has been used to denigrate an attacking, athletic style of play as if half-court is the "way to play" and running is some kind of payoff for solid half-court play.
The fact is this team is (was?) athletic, young, long, had snappy ball handlers and good finishers. I'll bet dollars to donuts that the Knicks percentages while attacking and forcing a faster pace are far better than those that they posted while playing strict X and O half court sets.
And it is very hard to execute when the lineup changes every night.
Let's just say that playing differently got 33 wins this year. We'd all be a lot happier now. We wouldn't be waiting with baited breath hoping that Chicago does not get to pick number 1 for us. The fact is, we are HOPING to get to 33 next year!
How does anyone miss that?
I can't see anything more wrong with any style of play that gets us more than 23 wins. Wins are what they play for, not pats on the back about playing the right way. And you know what? If you only win 23 games you ain't playin' the right way, and you aren't being played the right way!
This coaching strategy of last year, which was presumably devised around featuring our strengths and hiding our weaknesses, was to have Plodbury walk the ball up every play (remember the 8 second violation?) and freelance on the perimeter. usually either a pass to JC for a contested heave, or pick and pop with KT, or a pummel in for a foul. It was boring, designed around Steph's strengths, and brought us to sub-mediocrity.
So? If we get to sub-mediocrity next year PLAYING ANY STYLE we will all be a lot happier. I can't understand anyone dissing last year's playing style while comaring it to this year's. Bad as it was, it was 33% more successful than this year's, so I don't get the point.
See so many of you look at this year's poor results and know you want something different, but don't really agree on what that would be. But you'll take it even if you know it already stunk.
This year worse than stunk! ANYTHING is better! If this team played an uptempo, attacking style, they would have been at least as good as last year's team, and that is bad. This year was a disaster, there is no comparison.
It almost sounds as if you think this year was better, when it was clearly, clearly, worse by a loooooong shot.
I'll take more of the same 33 wins if the alternative is 23 wins with no pick.
In preseason Marbury said of playing for Brown "I'm not going to change my game, I'm still going to play the way I've always played". (pretty much what we saw last year)
8 games in he said something to the effect that he doesn't like Brown's style, but he'll do it, but only if it wins.
2/3 thru he said " "I want to go up and down every single time I touch the ball... With this team, I don't think we should run any set plays."
At the end the season he said "I came here willing and able, 100 percent committed to do whatever he wanted me to do. I did it, it didn't work, so I'm going to play like how I know how to play.... he don't have to worry, I'm going to do everything that I did before he came here. I don't care what he wants to hear. I'm telling you what I'm going to do."
I can't get into the Brown Vs. Marbury, I'm a fan of niether. Marbury did his job better than Brown did though.
At each step it's a power struggle. He's like you guys, he doesn't care if it's the plod and drive or run and turnover, so long as he gets to choose. He wants to do what he knows how to do, and while it's never sustained success, that's the "strength" you guys seem to want to cater to, one way or another.
I don't know what you mean. Catering has nothing to do with it. "Coach, go get the most you can out of your team." That is it. It seems like some don't want to admit that NOTHING Brown did worked this year, except letting the players use their god-given athletic abilities for 6 games, which miraculously coincided with a 6 game win streak and the most entertaining basketball we saw all season.
Also, you have ignored that one thing Brown has not had anywhere, and that is sustained success. He has a curve, and the success of his teams drop off pretty steeply, and then he leaves town for another job that he was negotiating for while his team was going to hell.
Now I'm not trying to lay this ALL on Marbury, however I will argue that when your franchise-styled player, who Isiah maintained was untouchable (remember he cursed out the media while saying "we don't get down like dat"), and who many players felt was responsible for the removal of other players, leads a coup detat against the coach it is a major distraction - one the owner needed to step in and quell because the GM appeared to have a conflict of interest.
When was this coup d'etat that they speak of in the legends? Nearly every player on the team, including Brown's pets AD and Rose had a bone to pick. Everyone says that Marbury is not a leader and his teammates don't like him, but now he is leading a revolution! Well if he is, the other players did not take too much convincing, and that includes all the vets.
And Steph wasn't the only one. There were too many guy on their own page. But this was Steph's team, and his contentious nature set the tone right from the get-go.
Lets review Marbury's comments in preseason: I'm still here," Marbury said during a gathering of reporters at Basketball City in Manhattan. "They want me to go on a bad team so they can continue to drag me," said Marbury, who was presiding over his basketball camp at Chelsea Piers in Manhattan. "But it's cool, though....I ain't going nowhere, and I'm still going to play the same way I play. You know, they want me to get traded now because things are getting good. Same things that happened at every other team I was on. As soon as everybody started being players, then I get the boot. But I got somebody that's on my side now. And I think people, they can't deal with that, knowing that Isiah and I are close."
He knows his relationship with Isiah is divisive and it gives him a chip on his shoulder that teammates and coaches struggle with. He knows that. Then combine that with Steph's defensiveness toward brown: During an interview with ESPN radio's Stephen A. Smith yesterday, Brown offered an unusually candid remark when questioned about his relationship with Marbury. "At times he's played as good as I think he can possibly play," Brown said. "I also think he's not completely convinced that the way I coach is in his best interest. And that's something's that's been a little bit hard for me, and we've talked about it over and over again." And you have a power struggle that the rest of the team was caught between.
Is SM a jerk? Yes, we all agree about that. If playing that jerk in a way that maximizes his abilities leads him to a strong statistical season and 10 more wins than 23, great, at least you can trade him and we won't be in the absolute cellar of the NBA. I think that is more relevant than his well-documented poor attitude.
You could see the factions emerge with guys like Crawford, Q, Nate, and even Curry lending supportive words to the coach, while Marbury and others, especially those who felt either marginalized in the system or simply perceive themselves as Isiah's "assets" pretty much offering "no comment" in the matter.
3 out of the 4 in the "coaches corner" faction had the most disappointing seasons on the team. NR was a starter, then couldn't get off the bench, so his support did him no good.
What matters is production and the record that results from said production. All the rest is a red herring.
I see no problem with offering a "no comment" Why is that bad? I think that is quite mature! Why should lying be good?
It was a very divided clubhouse and that can't all be laid on the coaches feet. isiah's roster churning and collecting assets played a large role in the sense of instability and uncertainty, as well as a mutinous "star" (bury).
At least half of it can be laid at the coaches feet. He is the leader. It is his job to keep the team together, but the fact was he didn't care. The team was 7-21 before any trades were made, so I don't see how asset gathering played a role. The team was 7-21 before anyone questioned effort. However, Brown was in full force deflecting blame before the season even started.
There were really only 3 periods of effortful play: 1) in the beginning when guys were trying on defense, 2) midway when steph was told to get with the coach or be traded, 3) when jamal and the new faction of brown supports gained control of the team. The rest of the season was a team against the coach as led by their franchise player.
You are offereng an awful lot of speculation as to when and what the reasons for the effortful periods of play were. This stuff about SM leading the team against the coach is entirely made up. So is this stuff about factions. LB turned each player against him all by his own self.
Jamal is a Brown supporter? I don't know that and neither does anyone else. JC keeps his mouth shut and says the "right thing" when he has to. And I am not impressed by JC's or the team's so-called growth. Growth is not when you have 90% a god-awful season then finally start playing decent for the last 10%. That is known as "finally getting your s.hit together" I'll believe it when I see it sustained next season when it matters.
You can be sure the lack of chemistry, unity and effort was the far greater detriment to our success than Brown's "fundamentals" style of play. Just assuming that some/any other style of play would have made all the difference in the world is naive at best.
Chemistry and unity. Tell me: Did Brown create any? Did he do anything to maintain or grow it? Or did he destroy any hope of it?
Effort? Our best effort players, NR and Lee, never knew when they would play.
So I guess I agree with you, if Brown had continued playing the Knicks in a style that absolutely does not fit this personnel, but at least fostered some effort, unity, and CONSISTENCY, perhaps the Knicks would have been in contention for the 8th spot in the playoffs.
And you know what that would have been?
An improvement.
oohah
5/12/2006 2:42 PM
