I have a theory: it's because he played with Curry more. Now its been proposed several times that Frye and Curry can't play well together (Knickerblogger's posted about, we've had threads about it here). Defensively they are a nightmare because neither is a particularly good shotblocker or deterrent in the paint. Frye is generally forced to guard PF's when he's in the game with Curry and he just isn't quick enough laterally to guard the more athletic ones in the league, or strong enough physically to guard the real good post up guys. Curry of course is even less likely to be able to swing over and guard a PF. Neither seems to have the best awareness to grab rebounds either.

What's more is that when Frye is out there with Curry offensively, Curry dominates the middle and the paint and Frye has a tendency to hang around the perimeter shooting jumpers. While Frye's a pretty good shooter, he's proven to be a little bit streaky and seems to get into bouts with confidence.

But why, then, did Frye play better as a rookie? As I said, I think its b/c he played significantly fewer minutes with, and a significantly lower percentage of his minutes with Eddy Curry. Curry was able to improve his conditioning and stay out of early foul trouble more often and since Frye was inserted into the starting lineup, their minutes overlapped more. Check it out:

2005-2006:
Frye's minutes: 1572
Frye's minutes with Curry: 483
Frye playing time w/ Curry as a % of his overall minutes: 31%

2006-2007:

Frye's minutes: 1896
Frye's minutes with Curry: 987
Frye playing time w/ Curry as a % of his overall minutes: 52%


Channing almost played twice as many raw minutes with Curry this year, and the percentage of time he was on the court with Curry increased from 31% to 52% (21% difference). And as 82 games will tell you, the Channing Frye/Eddy Curry 2-man combo is one of the Knicks least effective combinations that don't include Malik Rose (Malik Rose, as it turns out, is poison).

2006-2007 numbers: http://www.82games.com/0607/0607NYKP.HTM
2005-2006 numbers: http://www.82games.com/0506/0506NYKP.HTM

As you can see, both years they rank among the least effective duos as far as point differential on the team. If you look at last year, Curry was pretty much better with every player (except the aforementioned Rose). Frye actually was a postive combination with a few players (Lee and Balkman especially, who tend to do his dirty work for him), and better with every non-Rose and Curry player except Crawford.

Now this is just a basic analysis, but its more support for a theory that's been brought out several times over the course of the year- that it can't be Frye and Curry together. What's the conclusion? IMO if you're going to build around Curry as the focal point...if he's gonna be out their 35 mpg a game, then you've gotta get rid of Channing while he still has some value. If there was a way to rotate both of them in at different times, I think that could work, but you wouldn't be maximizing the potential of either player.

Would we be better of building around Frye instead of Curry? I think Frye would be more effective in this scenario- possibly as effective as he was as a rookie, but its a different style of play. But they clearly are moving towards the Curry side of that decision.

stop the math. it's simple. Frye is a vagina. RJ has been playing with him. Period!

Posted by Caseloads:

stop the math. it's simple. Frye is a vagina. RJ has been playing with him. Period!

Interesting. So you chalk it up to the diddle factor?

Frye's dropoff from last season to this season was just huge. He went from a PER of 18 to 10.5. The magnitude of that difference is roughly the same as the difference between Brandon Roy and Trenton Hassell this past season. This is clearly something that can't be explained by Frye's 20% increase in minutes player with Curry.

More likely it's just been a pervasive change in Frye's role in the offense, regardless of whether Curry is on the floor or not.

                               05/06    06/07
FTA/40min                        5.8      2.3
% FGAs that were dunks             8%       2%
% FGAs that were jumpers          64%      78%
eFG% on jumpers                 .417     .388 

Clearly Frye became more perimeter, shooting more jumpers at a lower percentage and seeing big drops in dunks and FTA. But again, the % increase of Frye's minutes with Curry isn't enough to explain all this. There has just been an overall philosophical change with how Frye has been used in the offense.

Probably other factors played a role as well. His confidence was visibly poor throughout much of the season. And the drop in his FT% from 83% to 79% maybe suggests that his shot overall was not as sharp this past season.

When the offense was Steph running pick and roll, Frye was a great piece to the puzzle, now he's more focused on penetrating and feeding the Curry-monster. Frye doesn't fit with that.

He'd be great for Utah, or the Lakers, and some other teams where he could play that style again.

I'd love to trade him in some package for AK47 or Odom

I think Larry Brown as key to his development last year. Larry Brown was preaching fundamentals. Frye regressed significantly this past year. Until someone gets in his face and corrects his softie play, he's going to be a pretty lame player.

Let's hope that Frye gets his act together - he'll have much more value as both a Knick and as trade bait if he gets his game back.

Posted by JohnWallace44:

Posted by Solace:

I think Larry Brown as key to his development last year. Larry Brown was preaching fundamentals. Frye regressed significantly this past year. Until someone gets in his face and corrects his softie play, he's going to be a pretty lame player.

Don't you think Herb and Aguirre are working with him? They can't be spending all of their time with Curry.

The results don't back it up.

I think what happened was the extra weight really seemed to slow him down as a player, he wasn't jumping as well as last year which hurt his overal quickness......

Also Isiah really didn;t know how to use him, clearly he would have been better served coming off the bench and getting more plays drawn up for him. It was isiahs intention to showcase curry to save his job and at the expense of fryes game the team really suffered....

His overall skills are not that high to begin with and once the jumper leaves he has little else to bank on....

Too easy to blame others. Frye played a bunch with many different players and disappeared. I believe he will be much better in the future but his problems last year are on him not any other player or coach.