Spare parts effect the total package
The future of the New York Knicks hinges on reversing this trend of getting one dimensional players and instead starting a new trend of getting solid all-around basketball players, so that a sense of team identity and trust can finally be developed between the players.
Often times during the past four years, the Knicks have stock piled prolific scorers who are downright lousy defenders and/or passers, or work-in-project athletes who are devoid of fundamental team basketball skills, or good defenders who everyone knows can’t hit the broad side of a barn no matter how open a shot they are given. We don’t have to name names here.
This phenomenon needs to change now. It all starts with the #6 pick next month, but that’s only the beginning. The Eddy Currys, the Randolphs the Crawfords, the Nate Robinsons, those guys are pretty good at certain things and utterly atrocious at others, so instead of being pluses for the Knicks on both ends of the floor, they’re giving it away on the other end, and it is just that much more difficult to win basketball games for the Knicks, because they never can close out the game by the time 48 minutes have rolled around.
Any time you’re trying to come up with a starting five while trying to compensate for certain players inabilities in said starting five, it makes it too difficult to go out there and do what a competitive team should do: be in a position to win.
Some of it has to do with where you’re picking in the draft the past four years. When you’re picking at #23 every other year, there is a chance your talent is going to have some weaknesses and you only hope they can overcome them on the fly.
Yet there are going to be some guys that aren’t going to improve and it’s on them. Considering “it is not your aptitude that determines your altitude but your attitude,” if, for example, Eddy Curry doesn’t want to play defense, there is a very real chance he never will, at least until his current contract nears its expiration date.
You might think having a well-rounded team like I’ve described above is too ideal and impossible in reality, but how many Knicks currently fit the bill? Jamal Crawford, you say? Not close. Wilson Chandler? Chandler was nice at the very end, but so was Mardy Collins two years ago, and what has happened to him since his injury? We waited all season long to see Chandler get burn, and for what, to see a hobbled Quentin Richardson fail four four months of the season?
We need to start to get guys who can do all the fundamentals of basketball, not just one of them. Quentin could have been one of those guys but his back problems have prevented him from contributing at 100%.
Off topic: It will be really interesting to watch Lakers vs Celtics, if it comes to that. Imagine, the two teams that were involved in two infamously lopsided trades, and they make it all the way to the finals. Shame on you David Stern, for not doing something for the Knicks, but looking the other way when those two Enron deals went down, and then hooking up Chicago with the #1 pick this summer to top it off.
Off topic: You telling me Derek Fisher didn’t foul Brent Barry behind the three point line at the end of the game tonight? Shame on you David Stern, for corrupting the league with your Joey Crawfords and your Tim Donagheys puppets. Obviously you’re very desperate for Lakers-Celtics so you can reminiscence about the glory days of Larry Bird and Magic Johnson, but to what shady ends are you willing to go to get it? They said after the game, “he didn’t sell the foul.” A foul is a foul. Especially when you call sissy flop fouls all season long, for the past five years. So now you gotta have a certain look on your face for a foul to be called? Get these shitty refs out of here. Magic and Bird aside, some basketball fans merely reminiscence to a time when NBA referees didn’t effect the outcome of the game with such blatant bias. You might as well have Nike signing their paychecks instead of the NBA treasury.
Kobe vs KG, here we come! Thank you Mr. Stern!














