FROM REAL GM -
After sitting through the first two games of the Larry Brown era at Madison Square Garden, one thing has become clear about this Knicks club; standard rotations will not result in anything but the boos that were being spit down towards the bench and grazing the trinity of Donald Trump, Chris Rock, Howard Stern and their wives/girl friends/trophies on the way during their first quarter embarrassment on opening night.

Without question, things are different under LB than they were last year with Lenny Wilkens/Herb Williams. When players on the bench look over at him to see when he will call their number, there is a look in their eyes that you will see on any high school varsity team when a rookie junior or sophomore still feels lucky to get into the game.

Well, there are three rookies on the Knicks and though none should be starting, all will play big minutes this season. Anytime you have three rookies playing big minutes, standard practices of coaching need to be tossed aside. The luxury of the Detroit line-up and rotation that he Sharpee’d during his two seasons there is non-existent above Penn Station.

This will be LB’s biggest challenge of his career on purely a setting the line-up and rotations level.

Here is the one bold move that would get the Knicks an Atlantic Crown:

Bring Starbury off the bench.

Stephon Marbury is a terribly talented player, but he has become a terrible point guard. The underlying flaw of the Knicks is their ability to get easy shots, so the blame must be placed squarely on Marbury for this. On Sunday afternoon, Baron Davis played a very average game, but the difference between their worth as pure point guards was staggering. Sure, Davis only out-assisted Marbury 9-6, but I can attest to at least seven of the nine Davis assists as being easy buckets, whereas Marbury threw just two.

Starting Jamal Crawford in his stead will give real responsibility to a talented player that could use it and would surely cherish it. The bode of confidence would spark his play that needs a spark as he has become the lost man during the initial LB days.

The most important reason to bring Marbury off the bench is that it would make him a Ben Gordon super-sub and resuscitate his career from the brink. Before devising this scenario, I attempted to deal Marbury. I then looked at Trade Checker for all 29 other clubs and there isn’t a single team that would trade for him. Atlanta might have back in July, but they have Joe Johnson now. Mark Cuban is suddenly a little more fiscally conservative and the Heat are trying to do the 2003-2004 Lakers’ experiment.

With the deal Marbury option not an option, bringing him off the bench for Quentin Richardson would let him play the off-guard against a tired first unit and part of the second unit. His shooting percentage would undoubtedly increase and his overall feel for the game would come back.

His minutes per game wouldn’t decrease whatsoever and he would still be finishing games for the Knicks. It could become the equivalent of when Dennis Eckersley was converted into a closer after he became a totally useless starter, a shadow of his former self. The change in role, the change in mental outlook could be just what Marbury needs.

6-16 performances as he displayed on Sunday, which was actually a better game than Friday, won’t get the Knicks anywhere. We know that Marbury won't be going anywhere, so it is time for a big idea to salvage his career and maximize his talents.

You'd think Marbs was bangaranging this guy's girlfriend or something...

[Edited by - notfrye on 11-07-2005 4:10 PM]

bringing marbury off the bench might be a good idea. but I dont think it is becuase marbury isnt as good a scorer as ben gordon.

Posted by CrashDMB237:

I said this over on K4L too but... this article is awful. You'd think a "quality" site like RealGM would have someone at least copy edit their articles. I don't know who this guy is, but he can't be in college and if he is, he major obviously has nothing to do with media.

Kinda harsh, don't you think? What is it about the article that makes you say all that?

I'd bring Marbury off the bench if we had Kidd and Kobe on our team!

Posted by mythfaze:

Posted by CrashDMB237:

I said this over on K4L too but... this article is awful. You'd think a "quality" site like RealGM would have someone at least copy edit their articles. I don't know who this guy is, but he can't be in college and if he is, he major obviously has nothing to do with media.

Kinda harsh, don't you think? What is it about the article that makes you say all that?

Maybe its just because I'm an editor of a newspaper and rip articles like this apart weekly, but I don't think its harsh. The dude obviously has never taken a writing for media course. Terrible comma usage, long sentences and just an overall bad format for a column. It's almost like he's trying too hard to come up with something clever in every paragraph (ie: trinity of Donald Trump, Chris Rock, Howard Stern... talking about high school players in the second, "Sharpee'd" and "above Penn Station" instead of "coached" and "MSG"). I don't want to turn this into a critique, but stuff like this drives me insane.

This thread is effin' hilarious.

Marbury will start.