RETRO: seriously, the knicks suck

Dear certain Knicks fans,

There's a big difference between having talent and winning games with it. Marbury, Crawford, and Curry might be good individual players, but add them up and they don't go anywhere. PLEASE --- DO NOT compare Crawford to Richard Hamilton - Hamilton fights through screens fitting into their offense and gets a fairly high percentage for a guard, and plays killer D. Crawford jacks it up out of the context of the offense and plays no D. While he has a good shot and obvious ability, he's not that kind of player. Same with Marbury- it's not a matter of him putting up good numbers. He's always done that. You might think that a guy who puts up 8 assists a game must be a good point guard.... but what's his Ast/TO ratio? How many bad shots does he take early? This stuff is harder to look at, but it matters more. He and Crawford would make a great back court... for a pickup game. That's not good enough in the big time.

Curry has some offense, but does not rebound or play D. And don't tell me Larry is going to teach him - Scott Skiles had everyone else on that Bulls team last year playing great D. If he couldn’t do it there, why here? Curry only survived last year because he had Tyson Chandler next to him to take care of that, while he focused only on offense. Chandler blocked a lot of shots and pulled down 10 boards. Do the Knicks have anyone who can do that? Maybe if they use Channing Frye more, they can get away with it. Good thing they signed Jermome James after he didn't even have a good contract season, just a few games against a team without a center. He's going to be very valuable as a backup to them, and was clearly a great signing in just another line of great signings by Isiah (ok sarcasm doesn't come off nearly as well typed).

I actually like Curry- he's one of the few young big guys with some offense. Hard to find guys with true post play anymore. But he's not going to turn it on if he hasn't already. He's in his 4th year? And he's at least 23. Shaq might have had 2-3 years of college ball, but remember that he was only 20 when he came in. Still got like 23 and 10 his rookie year. And don't tell me it was 'cause he came straight from high school--- Dwight Howard pulled in 10 boards last year, and Garnett had like 18 and 10 his second year, back when high school entries were rare. I think he's going to be like Zydrunas Illgauskas or Rik Smits--- guys who can score and might make a few all-star teams, but won't get nearly as many boards or blocks as they should for their size. With the lack of good true centers today, that makes him valuable. But not a franchise player.

It all comes down to defenders, and they don’t have it yet. Larry needs to make major changes. All five of those starters on the Pistons can D it up, and when the Sixers had their best team, it was 4 guys who were D first around Iverson. The Knicks don’t have anyone like that, except maybe Antonio Davis, who's old. And it's not like people are really interested in their players, despite what you hear about trade rumors. The Bulls let Curry and Crawford go easily for a reason, and the Knicks were the only teams to take a chance on them. The Bulls did much better by going with scrappy defenders like Duhon and Nocioni. Who wants to take on a huge contract for a guy that disrupts the offense? Unless someone else is ready to give Marbury the reigns (not likely) or take on a contract (they have a lot of bad ones), they're not going to make any decent deals. The only reasonable rumor I heard was them trying to get Theo Ratliff... which really wouldn't turn things around. Isiaih talks to anyone who will listen, but I doubt any of them are listening all that sincerely.

With this current roster.... there is no way they are making the playoffs unless a bunch of teams in the east fall apart. Which might happen, but they are not going to win more than 39 games. They look a lot like the Sixers when Larry first went there - they had a lot of talent, but they were all individual guys who didn't get along together. Iverson (much like Marbury) felt suffocated on offense and couldn't play point guard, especially when his backcourt mate Jerry Stackhouse (much like Crawford) was trying to shoot it all the time, and up front Derrick Coleman (much like Curry) put up big numbers but no one really cared about him (yeah, I know DC was a bitch, but he had much better numbers than Curry has so far). Larry changed a lot, brought in his kind of guys, and revamped the team. But that first year, they did not get close to the playoffs, and there was a lot of turmoil. This is, as far as I can see, a similar situation. If Larry actually pulls it off this year, he might be the coach of the century.

But it's not gonna happen.