Posted by TheSage:
All we seem to hear on this forum is younger and more athletic. The great knick teams of the late 60's and early 70's did not have a great athlete starting for them. There may have been an athlete somewhere down at the end of the bench. What they did have were thinking ballplayers, qite possibly the smartest professional team ever. They also had little height the tallest regular being Willis Reed who probably wasn't 6'9" on his tip toes. That teams produced team presidents and GMs, college professor, a US Senator, a few coaches and announcers.
Who on this team has that kind of head?
It's very difficult to compare that team to this current NBA era. True, they weren't all that athletic but the guys in the NBA now are far more athletic (even said by Clyde himself) than when they played. Then you could get away with having an entire team that wasn't very athletic at all.
Secondly,they just had a good all around team with one of the great coaches in NBA history implimenting a system. They just bought into a team system. The team I would say was not very athletic but they were extremely disciplined, team oriented and very very talented position by position pretty much. Holzman preached sharing the ball at all costs. Swing the ball, swing the ball, swing the ball he'd say. They were of course intelligent but when you were passing the ball to a Bradley or a Reed or Frazier or a Monroe or a Debusschere you had a group of talent that is rare to have. Kinda like a Pippen, Jordan Rodman kinda thing in my opinion.
Look at Detroit as a defensive unit.....or even Iniana (with Artest). It's not always strictly about intelligence but TO ME moreso about buying into a system that works (this comes back to good coaching too). I wouldn't consider Artest a 'smart guy' but when on the court that guy just has something special. Bruce Bowen has it. Ben Wallace has it....I'm talking defensively now.
That said, we DO have to look at athleticism because if we do not, people like Amare will just walk right around an imoble player of ours on every play. I sick and tired of us ALWAYS having to double because the players on the other team are quicker to the ball, quicker to jump, quicker to recover on D and just plain superior atheletically. After all, basketball falls into the category of athletics. However I do agree that bball iq is very important. Some may disagree, but I believe that Marbury is a smart player. NOT ALL OF THE TIME. But i do believe that put around the right players the pass he just made looks much better because the person he's passing to can finish. I don't think he has a problem with moving the ball it's just that so often he finds himself in the position where he has to call his own number because of cicumstances. Who was gonna take the last few shots? Kurt? No. Mohammad? No. Tim Thomas hmmmmmm...No. Crawford? If he's on yes, if he's off No. Ariza? (see Crawford). So if I'm steph i'd have to call my own number. This is where players like Q come into play. Or Steph driving to the basket, making the center commit and then setting up Frye for a layup (or whoever our center will be).
6/30/2005 5:22 PM
