HUGE thanks for this Cos!

I'm keeping this one.

Great to watch for a number of reasons.

Of course, most of it is reminding me of how much I loved that team, but...

some of which interestingly remind me of the debates that really started to get louder from that season on about the way the team was under JVG.

I have respect for the guy, but if you watch some of the clips from the games against miami, you can see how some thought it may have been DESPITE JVG and his obsession with slow it down at all costs, as well as his anti-Grunfeld approach to acquisitions of Spree and especially Camby, that the team revitalized itself.

Ewing also showed how much of a warrior he was playing with a partially torn ACL and still having huge games in the series against Miami and Atlanta.

Spree and Camby were a revelation, and I still get angry thinking about how Layden traded Camby for a player coming of a major injury like McDyess. Imagine we had kept Marcus?

It leads to ultra-Knick fan paradoxical questions:

Did Ewing's injury actually allow for the team to grow and would it have been better for the Knicks to lose to Miami to move on after JVG and maybe Ewing sooner? It was almost because the team was playing against Van Gundy's style that the team was playing better! Ewing's injury allowed Camby (especially) to finally get some real burn where he could be utilized, or when the team with Childs, Spree and Marcus would go against Van Gundy's slow it down/anti-7 seconds or less style even when you can take advantage of the other team not being ready to set up on D (which we see in one of the clips)?

This leads me to the irony of having Mike D as our coach, and perhaps why some Knick fans don't like him. I always suspect that those who most romanticize the Ewing/Van Gundy Knicks grind it out style are more likely to feel this way versus those who feel that while that was cool earlier in Ewing's career that at the same time they got too attached to that style when it was clear you could still be a good defensive team, as the '99 Knicks were after Ewing couldn't play, with athletic defensive minded players, but who liked to run, like Camby, Spree & Childs.

Hearing the chant of JVG in the Hawks series after the rumors about Phil Jackson also gets me a bit upset, as I was in the camp of someone who had liked Van Gundy, but then started to be concerned that we needed to change our coach to fit the team if he wasn't going to adapt himself to the roster that Grunfeld had very nicely built, and that had the awareness that Ewing was not going to last.

Imagine if we lost to Miami and then added Phil Jackson to the team we had?

This leads to the ultimate gut check for Knick fans and the question many never want to answer, was that while the '99 run was magical, if you wanted a title with the roster Grunfeld had spent 3 years building with a post-Ewing mentality, it may have been better for the Knicks to lose to Miami and then have JVG fired. Ewing supported JVG, and while I he is still my favorite Knick, this game of politics may have been like GM refusing to change their technology even when the winds of change were blowing.



[Edited by - PresIke on 06-07-2009 12:09 PM]

Posted by PresIke:

HUGE thanks for this Cos!

I'm keeping this one.

Great to watch for a number of reasons.

Of course, most of it is reminding me of how much I loved that team, but...

some of which interestingly remind me of the debates that really started to get louder from that season on about the way the team was under JVG.

I have respect for the guy, but if you watch some of the clips from the games against miami, you can see how some thought it may have been DESPITE JVG and his obsession with slow it down at all costs, as well as his anti-Grunfeld approach to acquisitions of Spree and especially Camby, that the team revitalized itself.

Ewing also showed how much of a warrior he was playing with a partially torn ACL and still having huge games in the series against Miami and Atlanta.

Spree and Camby were a revelation, and I still get angry thinking about how Layden traded Camby for a player coming of a major injury like McDyess. Imagine we had kept Marcus?

It leads to ultra-Knick fan paradoxical questions:

Did Ewing's injury actually allow for the team to grow and would it have been better for the Knicks to lose to Miami to move on after JVG and maybe Ewing sooner? It was almost because the team was playing against Van Gundy's style that the team was playing better! Ewing's injury allowed Camby (especially) to finally get some real burn where he could be utilized, or when the team with Childs, Spree and Marcus would go against Van Gundy's slow it down/anti-7 seconds or less style even when you can take advantage of the other team not being ready to set up on D (which we see in one of the clips)?

This leads me to the irony of having Mike D as our coach, and perhaps why some Knick fans don't like him. I always suspect that those who most romanticize the Ewing/Van Gundy Knicks grind it out style are more likely to feel this way versus those who feel that while that was cool earlier in Ewing's career that at the same time they got too attached to that style when it was clear you could still be a good defensive team, as the '99 Knicks were after Ewing couldn't play, with athletic defensive minded players, but who liked to run, like Camby, Spree & Childs.

Hearing the chant of JVG in the Hawks series after the rumors about Phil Jackson also gets me a bit upset, as I was in the camp of someone who had liked Van Gundy, but then started to be concerned that we needed to change our coach to fit the team if he wasn't going to adapt himself to the roster that Grunfeld had very nicely built, and that had the awareness that Ewing was not going to last.

Imagine if we lost to Miami and then added Phil Jackson to the team we had?

This leads to the ultimate gut check for Knick fans and the question many never want to answer, was that while the '99 run was magical, if you wanted a title with the roster Grunfeld had spent 3 years building with a post-Ewing mentality, it may have been better for the Knicks to lose to Miami and then have JVG fired. Ewing supported JVG, and while I he is still my favorite Knick, this game of politics may have been like GM refusing to change their technology even when the winds of change were blowing.



[Edited by - PresIke on 06-07-2009 12:09 PM]

Phil Jackson would never of come to the Knicks. He knew the Lakers were more talented than the Knicks. Ewing on the down turn was reason enough to choose Shaq and Kobe. Phil was just playing the Knicks with no intention of coaching the Knicks.

I kind of miss those days, like 41-37 halftime scores. Gritty!

Vmart, You may be right, but the rumor was we were at least talking to Jackson.

Either way, Van Gundy was not a good fit with the direction our team was taking.

Layden was a disaster as GM, with his Utah choir boy roster desires.

Shandon, Eisley & Van Horn...uggggh

McDyess for Camby and Nene was a HUGE risk. I supported it because I wanted a star, but the lesson should always be to be wary of damaged goods.

The Knicks under he and Isiah never got the message, and were too keen to go for high-risk-reward moves with salary cap and future draft picks.

watching that reminded me of how much i really liked and cared about that team.

it might have been at least partially because of my age at the time, but i'm sure that it was also because they were a good team that had an identity, that worked hard, and most importantly it was a team of winners. good people on a special squad.

it's been 10 years, and i am happy that we finally seem to have something like that brewing again. hopefully this mda team can make me care like that again.

Posted by Elite:

yoooo thanks for the plugs cosmic!!! thats wasup man.... glad u like the site :)

good lookin on the video, im going to watch it now im hype lol

Hey, you pointed it out, I'd never seen it otherwise, so you deserve the plug. Plus these things have a habit of finding their ways to all corners of the earth so now you're international.

Great show. Should have been a 2 hour show. I'm upset they did not highlight Allan and Sprees 65 point blasting of the Hawks - or Camby's coast to coast monster dunk in the open court on the Hawks. Not to mention highlighting how LJ got hurt in the ECF and we found a way to close out that game without him - and how we had all our big men injured against the Spurs, etc. Again, should have been a 2 hour show.

Was still great though.