A Step Slower, Marbury May Serve the Knicks Best on the Bench (article)
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babyKnicks
Posts: 22486 Alba Posts: 0 Joined: 10/31/2006 Member: #1191 USA |
11/28/2006 10:00 AM
BY JOHN HOLLINGER
November 28, 2006 URL: http://www.nysun.com/article/44201 Ah, the best laid plans. Before the season, pro basketball teams usually have a good idea of which players will carry the mail, how the playing rotation will work, and what type of identity the team will have. But sometimes, when the regular season starts, all that goes out the window. Take the Knicks, for instance. They expected to keep themselves in the playoff race this season largely on the backs of three key players — Stephon Marbury, Channing Frye, and Eddy Curry. Three weeks into the season, the performance of that trio has ranged somewhere between "bad" and "disastrous." Curry has failed to score at his usual high clip but still is making three turnovers a game and playing nonexistent defense. Isiah Thomas has complained that the officials don't give Curry any respect, but he might do better to focus on Curry's habit of running over the nearest defender instead of going around him. Frye's struggles have been even more baffling. After a strong freshman campaign in which he made the All-Rookie Team despite being randomly yanked in and out of the lineup by Larry Brown, Frye looked to have a breakout year as the starting power forward. Instead, he's struggled to get going offensively, mostly settling for long jumpers and shooting at a 37.9% clip. Defensively, he's been even worse, and now he'll be out for several weeks after spraining his ankle over the weekend. Then there's Marbury. The Knicks' best player during his previous two and a half seasons in Gotham has been nothing of the sort in 2006–07. His performance has slipped so badly that Isiah Thomas has sent him to the pine in recent games. In Saturday's loss to Chicago, Marbury never got off the bench in the second half after failing to attempt a shot in 19 ineffective firsthalf minutes. Five days earlier he was yanked a minute into the second half of a three-point, four-turnover outing against the Rockets. On the season, Marbury is shooting 40.3% and averaging a career-low 10.1 points a game. The Knicks even tried benching Steve Francis in an effort to get Marbury going — theorizing that the two made a bad pair in the backcourt — but that's only seemed to make Marbury play worse. His usual fearless drives to the basket have been few and far between, a puzzling development given that he's supposed to be the focal point of the offense — especially given the free reign the league has granted quick guards the past few years. Which gets back to the major question: Is Marbury still a quick guard? Marbury says he's playing the way Isiah Thomas asks him to and that on some of these nights the shots haven't been there for him, but Jamal Crawford, Nate Robinson, and Steve Francis haven't seemed to have trouble creating offense. More than one observer has mentioned that Marbury looks a bit heavy and a step slow, which is tolerable if you're built like Shaquille O'Neal but devastating if you're dependent on blowing by people for a living. Unfortunately, this points out yet one more oversight Isiah Thomas made in composing his roster. It's clear he erred in gathering four guards who all do the same thing, because it makes it harder for each to do his job. But the other problem with acquiring players like Steve Francis and Stephon Marbury has to do with their age and contracts. Marbury turns 30 on February 20, while Francis hits the milestone a day later. This need not be a death knell for their careers; just look at what Steve Nash has done in his early 30s. But history tells us that certain types of players tend to age better than others. What it tells us, in particular, is that players who depend on their quickness tend to diminish much faster than players who depend on their size or shooting skill, because speed's the first thing to go once mother nature starts getting her cuts in. Unfortunately, Marbury and Francis fit the exact profile of the players who tend to diminish the most in their late 20s and early 30s. Thus, when Thomas acquired these two he was essentially buying into a declining commodity. Both players are signed for the maximum for two seasons beyond this one, but each has tailed off at an alarming rate the past few seasons. Using my Player Efficiency Rating (PER, a per-minute rating of a player's statistical effectiveness), we can see the decline. As the chart shows, each player played at an All-Star level in 2002–03, when they both turned 26 during the season. From there, Francis was the first to decline, suffering what was thought to be an "off-year" in Houston in 2003-04 but was actually a sign of what was to come. Both players got a little boost when the defense rules changed in 2004-05, giving greater freedom to penetrating guards like these two, but now that looks like a mere blip in the overall trend. While Francis seems to have leveled off a bit at his current level of production with a PER in the high-teens, Marbury's decline the past two seasons has been jarring. Last year we thought it was Larry Brown, but this year Marbury has played even worse for a coach who couldn't possibly be more in his corner. It's shown in the Knicks' play, too, as New York is scoring a whopping 17.6 points per 100 possessions, according to 82games.com, worse with Marbury on the court. This isn't all on Marbury obviously — the starting unit as a whole has been a train wreck, Quentin Richardson aside — but it points out how much better the Knicks have looked with Crawford and Robinson on the floor. And perhaps it also shows a silver lining in all this. Yes, the Knicks have looked terrible, but the East has been so bad that they're still in the Atlantic Division title race. Further, New York could get a leg up by reassigning minutes to its most productive players. Even with the recent benchings, Marbury is third on the team in minutes, seeing much more action than more productive players like Robinson and Francis. So maybe it's time for Isiah to complete his backcourt reshuffle by making Marbury's seat on the bench a more permanent one — demoting him to the fourth guard, basically. This would be a huge distraction and would set off tabloid mania around the city, but it also would get the Knicks' most productive guards on the court. Add in the boost that should come from giving Frye's minutes to the vastly more productive David Lee, and it's possible the Knicks could play much better than they've shown thus far. Sure, abandoning the focal point of the offense a month into the season is an odd way to pursue a playoff spot, but strange things happen once the season starts. All the evidence points to a changing of the guard, so to speak, at the Garden. Perhaps it will change the results, too. Let's go Knicks. That's amare
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Elite
Posts: 26372 Alba Posts: 23 Joined: 12/30/2003 Member: #510 |
11/28/2006 10:08 AM
Applaud this man
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Elite
Posts: 26372 Alba Posts: 23 Joined: 12/30/2003 Member: #510 |
11/28/2006 10:44 AM
I dont know if he really lost a step.. but he definately lost his confidence. And thats huge
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A Step Slower, Marbury May Serve the Knicks Best on the Bench (article)