I think that ever since Marbury's graduated from Lincoln HS he's had bad luck at basically every step of the way. It's hard to watch a Marbury game where he plays average or better and say there are very many guys better than him at his position. He scores, he sets guys up, and he makes plays in the 4th quarter. Is he a great defender? No, but he's so good offensively it's hard to say "well, he's not a good defender, so he sucks."

He was immature in Minnesota, a 19 year old playing alongside a name bigger than his. He blew that chance, oh well. He goes to NJ and they trade him the year before they get totally healthy and acquire more pieces, Kidd comes in, and they win. He gets dealt to Phoenix, and a year later they have a healthy Amare, Joe Johnson getting big minutes, Quentin Richardson playing, and quotes like "Nash is the best PG in the NBA."

The problem with the Knicks is they are poorly constructed, have bad coaching, have no interior or perimeter defense, don't have many athletes, and almost all of the players are overpaid.

Those are a lot of problems, and unfortunately when you lose the finger gets pointed at the best player (s), in this case its Marbury and to a certain extent, Crawford.

In my opinion losing this year is a good thing for this team. Isiah can find a coach in the offseason who can come in and preach defense. Why teams continue to try new styles like a running team or a team that chucks a lot of 3s is mindboggling. Defense wins. Look at every team, LITERALLY, that has won an NBA championship and they're a good defensive team. That's why Seattle and Phoenix won't win this year.

Another problem the Knicks have is they're constructed, now, around a backcourt. Other than MJ, go down the line of the modern NBA and all of them had either a) a good frontline or b) a great big man. Detroit (good frontline; great DEFENSIVE team), San Antonio (Duncan), LA (Shaq), Chicago (the exception to the rule with MJ; I'd imagine LeBron will be an exception in about 2 years); Houston (Hakeem), Chicago (exception again), Detroit (great team, good frontline, good defensively, LED however by a great PG named Isiah Thomas), LA (best PG of all-time in Magic, who was 6'9", also had Abdul-Jabbar and a great overall team), Boston (Bird, McHale, Parrish) etc etc.

Losing this year and finding a big man in the draft is, arguably, the best thing that could happen. If they go into 2005-2006 with Andrew Bogut or Marvin Williams, then you can at least start to create a team identity. Marbury being the great PG, Crawford a fantastic scoring 2, and a big man downlow. Get defensive players and a defensive coach and you can construct a defender.

Guys like Nazr, KT, Houston, TT, etc., they're all wastes of time. Mold Ariza into a defensive stopper, he's young enough and hungry enough and GOOD enough to do it. Also, do not make lateral moves like the KVH for TT and Nazr move last year. Do not just add pieces because you can and it'll give the team another 2 wins. Championship teams do that, not teams that are 8 seeds.

Keep losing Knicks, get our big man. Trade off the guys like Nazr and KT, etc., get some draft picks, let Tim Thomas and Penny expire to get the cap to a reasonable amount, and hopefully Isiah will get serious. Herb at least talks like he's going to be a coach I described. If not, get Aguirre on that bench to be Isiah's henchman. If not, Isiah, get on the goddamn bench and do it yourself. Get in their faces, MAKE them play defense, install a system, and the team will win.

Just putting guys out on the floor and having zero strategy or gameplan is the reason why they're losing so many games.

So, to sum it up:
A) For now at least, Marbury is not a loser.
B) Crawford has his deficiences, but the amount of players in the league who combine his size, handle, and scoring ability are few. McGrady, Bryant, Lebron, that's about it.
C) Weed out the other losers on the roster (KT, Nazr, etc). I wouldn't be opposed to doing the trade Briggs recommended, offering Nazr to Minnesota for Johnson and a first rounder.
D) Bring in players and a coach that match a strategy, namely, a defensive one. Whether it is Mark Aguirre, Isiah, or Herb or someone else, find someone who isn't going to take **** and who is going to make players play defense. The Knicks were the #1 defensive team in the league with a Mark Jackson/Allan Houston backcourt, Van Gundy made it happen.
E) Keep losing, draft Andrew Bogut (preferably) or Marvin Williams. I love Bogut. I'll take a 7 footer who can pass, play outside, play inside, block shots, and rebound anyday of the week.
F) Let Penny and TT expire, stop taking on ridiculous contracts and trading for career losers. Let's get a winning atmosphere in this place.

Posted by BigSm00th:

Is he a great defender? No, but he's so good offensively it's hard to say "well, he's not a good defender, so he sucks."

The problem with the Knicks is they are poorly constructed, have bad coaching, have no interior or perimeter defense, don't have many athletes, and almost all of the players are overpaid.

In my opinion losing this year is a good thing for this team. Isiah can find a coach in the offseason who can come in and preach defense.

Defense wins. Look at every team, LITERALLY, that has won an NBA championship and they're a good defensive team. That's why Seattle and Phoenix won't win this year.

Losing this year and finding a big man in the draft is, arguably, the best thing that could happen.

Get defensive players and a defensive coach and you can construct a defender.

Good stuff Smooth... I agree completely with everything I quoted... You can't expect to win anything with this group... Defense wins. Defense is effort...

IMO Overpaying players will leave them no other motivation but their own work ethic...

That's a great post. Luck is definitely a huge part of it. He still has a lot to prove and a lot of time to prove it. My guess is that once Isiah gets a better supporting cast, the team will do better, and everyone will be impressed by Marbury "new" maturity just like they were in 2003

Smooth,

Great post. I agree with what you said but I still hate to watch them lose. Everytime they play I want them to win. I can't stand the lets lose so we can get a good draft pick theory. But maybe its best for the Knicks this year.

Defense does win championships. I feel that as well as Phoenix is playing, they will not win it all this year. SA or Miami will.

Posted by BigSm00th:


A) For now at least, Marbury is not a loser.
B) Crawford has his deficiences, but the amount of players in the league who combine his size, handle, and scoring ability are few. McGrady, Bryant, Lebron, that's about it.
C) Weed out the other losers on the roster (KT, Nazr, etc). I wouldn't be opposed to doing the trade Briggs recommended, offering Nazr to Minnesota for Johnson and a first rounder.
D) Bring in players and a coach that match a strategy, namely, a defensive one. Whether it is Mark Aguirre, Isiah, or Herb or someone else, find someone who isn't going to take **** and who is going to make players play defense. The Knicks were the #1 defensive team in the league with a Mark Jackson/Allan Houston backcourt, Van Gundy made it happen.
E) Keep losing, draft Andrew Bogut (preferably) or Marvin Williams. I love Bogut. I'll take a 7 footer who can pass, play outside, play inside, block shots, and rebound anyday of the week.
F) Let Penny and TT expire, stop taking on ridiculous contracts and trading for career losers. Let's get a winning atmosphere in this place.

A) He is until he start winning, that's just the way it is for someone whose former teams start winning AFTER he leaves.

B) Umm, you're putting T-Mac, Kobe and LeBron in HIS category? There are a lot of guards in the NBA that I'd rather have than that chucker. Ones that know how to play NBA team basketball, ones that don't just chuck offbalance 3's with 15 seconds still on the shotclock and ones that actually play defense.

C) Sure, teams are going to be falling over themselves to give us their #1 picks for our "losers" as you put it. Especially the ones with big long term contracts like KT.

D) You're still building around the worst defensive backcourt in the NBA though. The Knicks weren't built around Mark Jackson and Houston. Marbury and Crawford are supposed to be the leaders of this team, the ones whose example is followed. If they don't give a damn about defense then why would the rest of the team?

E) Enough with Bogut and Williams. If they're that good, we're not going to get them from where we'll be picking. We're in purgatory where we're not bad enough to think about a top 5 pick and we're not good enough to think we can do anything in the playoffs if we make them. I've been saying this since the Marbury trade went down.

F) I would agree that they should just let them expire but at this point we'll still be capped out even after Houston's contract is done. Trying to get cap space should have happened before we took on $200M in long term contracts. You can bet that Isiah will be taking back even more long term contracts when he trades Penny and TT for players whose current teams no longer want. He didn't bring up expiring contracts, over and over again, because he plans on letting them just expire.

Isles, I've never really disliked you but now I see that you just bring out the negative of every situation. Do you bring anything positive to the board? I'm with you that the Knicks should cut cap, rebuild, not trade draft picks, and get their acts together. I'm pretty sure if the Knicks had LeBron you'd want him out of here for one reason or another, you're a typical pecimist.
a) Your point is basically exactly what I said, except I brought in evidence as to why teams have won since he's left and you've just said "Well, they win after they leave."
b) I'm not putting Lebron, Tmac, or Kobe on anyone's level on the Knicks. What I said was "but the amount of players in the league who combine his size, handle, and scoring ability are few" Now since I imagine you don't watch Knicks games, I'll tell you that Crawford, a 6'5", has one of the best handles in the NBA. He can basically cross anyone over, he's unstoppable when he's on fire, and he has range well beyond the 3pt. line. That's what I said, nothing about him being as good as Lebron. Name some other players who are 6'5" who can play PG, create a shot whenever they want, are unstoppable when they catch fire (and they need 40 or 50 pt. games like Crawford), etc. There aren't many.
c) Last year Isiah was offered Malik Rose and a #1 for KT but turned it down. I wouldn't be shocked if similar offers were made. Teams on the cusp of winning it all (Miami, San Antonio, Minnesota, etc) would be willing to give up their late first rounder a role player (ie. SA last year w/ Rose) to get a player who might push them over the top.
d) No the Knicks weren't built around Jackson and Houston, however, those two were far worse than Crawford and Marbury at defense and the Knicks gave up the fewest points per game. It doesn't matter who they're building around, fact of the matter is Jackson and Houston sucked at defense but the Knicks had a clue on defense. They knew how to rotate, they knew how to help, they gave an effort, etc. These Knicks don't.
e) What purgatory are you talking about? The Knicks won 2 games in January and have the 7th worst record in the League. NO is getting Magloire back and they've been improving since Baron Davis got back. Utah got Kirilenko back, they'll start winning again. Right there, that puts the Knicks into the top 5. A move like trading KT for picks would move the Knicks even further down. Teams who have had the 5th worst record have won the lottery (see: Houston, the year they got Yao).
f) When Houston's contract expires they will be under the cap. Letting TT and Penny come off the cap puts them at around $60 million. Still above the cap? Yes, but not in the insane $100+ million they're at now. Plus it sends a message they aren't going to be absurd anymore. Isiah traded a bunch of crappy expiring contracts to get Marbury, and then to get Crawford. None of the players he traded are any good. Please make a case for one of them. Lampe stinks, McDyess stinks, Ward stinks, Eisley stinks, Frank Williams stinks. Sorry, face the facts. Now Isiah has his backcourt that he wanted. There was no point to letting those contracts expire b/c they were still so far over the cap it made no difference. Now, the end is near and in a few years, with wise spending, they can be under.

So Isles, please bring something to the table. You're a laughingstock at this point, I think I was one of the last people on the board to read your posts and actually think you were trying to make valid points. Now it seems like if someone said "MJ was a great basketball player" you'd retort with "He was hard on his teammates and he retired a lot." As if that was a valid excuse for him not being great. Whatever, I'll just disregard you like everyone else now.

The Diva Complex situation with Marbury is an interesting topic: but do people dislike him because he's been on losing teams and can't stand it or because he's arrogant and hard to get along with? I think it's because they've been losing and Marbury's critical of them. Nobody likes anybody else when they're losing, those are the facts.

No. The All Star game loses its validity when Yao Ming gets the most votes, Wince Carter is starting, and Dwayne Wade isn't. I'd rather watch the Rookie/Soph. game, to be honest.

If Marbury was to change his body language and his sulking every time we lose,he would'nt be dogged as much. the next day after a game if and I dont know the score I look in the papers to see if Marbury has a towel on his head. (that means we lost).

Marburry gets every facades of the game covered except for defense....He needs to studdy the best PG defenders in the game and learns a thing or two from them....He is an excellent ofensive player, but until he learns to lock down his man, he will always be criticized....If you think about it, the way to shut down a team is to shut down the ball handlers....Marburry is our PG, he has to be able to guard his position...Once he learns that, he will be the best PG in the game....

I think it just completely wears down your body to have to single-handedly carry a team on offense for 40 mpg for 82 games. I bet his defense would improve if the team had other scorers as well as a better back up PG (so he could play closer to 36 mpg).

Posted by TMS:

Marbury's problem is that he's a bad defender & he shies away from taking that last shot when the game is on the line, deferring to teammates instead...when you're the man on your team, you need to be the one to take that last shot...that's what separates bigtime players.

Now we're all down on Marbury, but he's the same player who's hit many game winners including one against the Spurs in the playoffs