Curry Trade Continues to Pay Dividends for Bulls
By HOWARD BECK

CHICAGO, April 10 — Homecoming has become an emotionally complicated affair for Eddy Curry. The United Center has turned hostile. Fans root nearly as hard for Curry’s Knicks to fail as they do for the Chicago Bulls to succeed.

There were hugs waiting from family, friends and former teammates, but little room for sentimentality when Curry faced the Bulls again on Tuesday.

The Bulls are rising in the East and charging toward the playoffs as the probable No. 2 seed. The Knicks are on the verge of elimination from the race. And the trade that sent Curry from Chicago to New York 18 months ago could haunt the Knicks long after their season is over.

Last June, the Bulls used the Knicks’ lottery pick to obtain Tyrus Thomas in a draft-day trade. Two months from now, the Bulls will reap one final benefit of the Curry deal, by swapping first-round selections with the Knicks.

With every Knicks loss, that draft pick rises in the draft order. And the Knicks’ late free fall has increased the Bulls’ chances of winning the lottery. Tuesday, the free fall continued in the 98-69 rout by the Bulls.

Isiah Thomas, the Knicks’ president and coach, will be the one most harshly judged if the Bulls land Greg Oden or Kevin Durant with the Knicks’ pick. Yet it is Curry who will be compared to the players the Knicks surrendered.

For now, however, Curry is free to bask in the glow of his finest professional season. He returns home as one of the top low-post scorers in the National Basketball Association, just three days removed from a career-best 43-point performance. He has become the dominant offensive force the Bulls once hoped he would become.

When it was suggested that the trade helped both teams, Curry paused.

“Um, I guess,” he said. “I mean, I think it definitely helped the Knicks. I think the Bulls are going to be O.K. no matter what. They got some good guards over there, they got a great coach over there, they have a system that’s really working for them. Ben Wallace is a great defender, and he really added to that concept of team defense.”

But Curry noted, with some degree of satisfaction, that the Bulls’ greatest need is for a low-post scorer.

“Tyrus Thomas, we’ll see how that whole thing pans out,” he said. “I mean, he’s a great player, and hopefully he can be the player they need him to be.”

The 20-year-old Thomas, a 6-foot-9 forward from Louisiana State, is averaging 5.2 points and 3.7 rebounds in a little more than 13 minutes a game. Curry, 24, is on pace for career highs in points (19.6) and rebounds (7.1) per game. But his former coach, Scott Skiles, shrugged at the apparent improvement.

“I don’t want to minimize Eddy’s year,” Skiles said, “but I mean, he’s averaging roughly 3 more points a game than he did here, shooting almost the same field-goal percentage, which has always been very high, in a lot more minutes.”

Skiles continued: “Eddy’s having a very good year, but it seems like he’s being put on a pedestal awful quickly here. I don’t think that’s necessarily fair to him, because he’s still such a young player. He’s clearly improving. I like to watch him play, because I like him as a person.”

Despite the jeers, Curry retains a fondness for the United Center, his first N.B.A. home. It was also the site of his first great triumph in this breakout season. On Nov. 28, Curry scored 24 points, his season-high at the time. He followed that with a string of 20-point efforts.

“I think that was kind of the turning point of the new me,” Curry said Monday night. “I started playing well after that. I’m looking forward to going back. Chicago always plays us tough, and it’s not an easy game.”

Posted by BasketballJones:

Big Macs Anger Knicks

LOL at the headline.

Posted by joec32033:

Big Macs Anger Knicks
11th April, 2007 - 4:23 am
Chicago Tribune -
Several Knick players accused the Bulls of trying to run up the score in the Bulls' 98-69 blowout win in an attempt to hit the century mark, the Chicago Tribune is reporting. Should the Bulls score 100 points, they provide free Big Macs for the crowd.

Steve Francis and Nate Robinson got in the faces of Bulls rookies Tyrus Thomas and Thabo Sefolosha as the final buzzer sounded. As the teams then retreated to their locker rooms, teammates had to restrain Knicks center Jerome James from going after Thomas.

The brawl earlier in the season between the Knicks and the Denver Nuggets also started after Knick players felt disrespected by J.R. Smith's high flying antics with Denver holding a large lead.

"I know when people are trying to run up the score on you," Francis said. "I told their players that if I was in the game, it would've been something different. I won't do that to nobody and I don't expect nobody to try to do that to the younger players on my team."

"I don't care about the Big Mac. I'm just saying respect, man. Their coach played in the NBA before. He should know that. If somebody did that to him, I'm pretty sure he would be upset."

Bulls coach Scott Skiles, speaking before Francis did, had no problem with his team missing three three-pointers, an alley-oop attempt from Chris Duhon to Thomas and a layup attempt off a rebound in the final 64 seconds after hitting 98 points.

"If we had 92 points with two minutes to go and we're out there jacking threes all over the place, I could see that," Skiles said. "But at the end to shoot the ball and try to tip it in, I've never been accused by anybody of trying to run up the score."

Pressed further, Skiles finally turned sarcastic.

"From everything I hear, they're on the verge of being a great team," Skiles said. "It ought to be a team we should be playing over and over again in the years to come. So something like this shouldn't fester or anything."
realgm

Posted by Masterplan:

i'm actually pretty surprised that you guys are so dead set against fingerpainting. from what i've read it seems like a good team building activity. and all that aggression nate had at the end of the chicago game? all gone after he put it into this work he calls "me dunking over the stupid bulls"

Posted by Michael6835:

It is time for this NY team to Man up. Stop complaining about the blowouts just play the game. If you know the team is trying to run up the score, then play harder to make sure they dont get it. If I was in the garden and they were giving out free pizza for 100pts, I would be cheering the team on to get to 100, plus I think the team would want to get to 100 to give their fans something extra. I didn't watch the game last night, was it that Chicago had their starting lineup in ?

This is much different than Denver, the nuggets were trying to do it to rub it in on purpose, these guys were doing to for their home crowd. Time to just say we got be badly, but we were not going to let the fans get free big macs on us. and leave it at that!

Posted by djsunyc:

the bulls pulled all their starters midway through the 3rd.