Tag: Knicks

I knew they couldn’t be that bad

The Knicks are proving that this is going to be a long and eventful season. Following up an awful six-game losing streak that dropped them to 3-8, the team ran off three wins on the West Coast — an almost unheard of feat in recent Knicks’ years.

Good things abounded — including the play of point guard Ray Felton and forward Danilo Galinari and the emergence of Ronny Turiaf as a defensive stabilizer.

So, it seems pretty clear that this team is not going to be quite as bad as it looked a week ago, though I’m not sure we are looking at a team that will win much more than 40 games. Given the last half-dozen years or so, I’ll take it.

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  • Read poetry at The Subterranean.
  • Certainties and Uncertainties a chapbook by Hank Kalet, will be published in November by Finishing Line Press. It can be ordered here.
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Knicks should not be this bad

The Knicks should not be 3-8. There is a better balance of talent than in recent years, though not enough to offset those nights when the shots do not fall. They need to play better defense and go hard to the hoop.

  • Send me an e-mail.
  • Read poetry at The Subterranean.
  • Certainties and Uncertainties a chapbook by Hank Kalet, will be published in November by Finishing Line Press. It can be ordered here.
  • Suburban Pastoral, a chapbook by Hank Kalet, available here.
Email me at grassroots at comcast dot net.

Optimism reigns before season begins

I am a Knicks fan, which is a lot like being a Mets fan when you get down to it. I am optimistic as the season approaches and then the results come in and the pain resumes. Alas.

In any case, stories like this one about Dano Galinari make me hopeful. (Though I wouldn’t risk a dime to back it up.)

  • Send me an e-mail.
  • Read poetry at The Subterranean.
  • Certainties and Uncertainties a chapbook by Hank Kalet, will be published in November by Finishing Line Press. it can be ordered here.
  • Suburban Pastoral, a chapbook by Hank Kalet, available here.
Email me at grassroots at comcast dot net.

Stoudamire a good signing, but only first step

There’s been a lot of talk about David Lee being a cheaper alternative to Amare Stoudamire for the Knicks and he will prove to be cheaper. But Lee, even though his numbers were comparable this year to Stoudamire’s, is not Stoudamire.

 

I say this as a big David Lee fan who is disappointed the team could not bring him back.

 

But consider a couple of things:

  • Lee played on a bad team and it has long been a truism in the NBA that you should not trust good players from bad teams. Basically, someone has to score and someone has to rebound. In the absence of other players, that often falls to someone whose reputation grows disproportionate to their actual talent. Lee is a solid player, a good player with a nice mid-range jumper and solid passing skills. He’s willing to do the dirty work. He’s a modern Charles Oakley, in that respect. Stoudamire, however, is a rock star who was the prime scorer on a team that fell a couple of games short of the finals.
  • Stoudamire gets to the foul line about twice as often as Lee. That is something not to be undervalued. The Knicks, as a whole, were woeful in that regard, demonstrating a lack of aggressiveness that no one can accuse Stoudamire of displaying.
  • Stoudamire has a history of injuries, though he played all 82 regular season games and all 16 post-season games, getting to the line an average of about nine times a game.
  • My issue with Stoudamire is on the defensive end and the glass, where he puts up far weaker numbers tahn I’d like, while Lee is a rugger rebounder and pretty good defender.
  • There also is just five months separating them — Stoudamire will turn 28 early in teh 2010-2011 season, while Lee will hit 28 in April.
 As for the other two major power forwards out there: Chris Bosh has the potential to be a better version of Stoudamire, but he remains a lesser player (see comment on good player/bad team), while Carlos Boozer is a throw-back power forward who will get star money though he should not be the go-to guy on your squad.

 

I like the Stoudamire signing, but I’m not sure it gets the Knicks that much farther down the road.

 

Reeling in LeBron James, on the other hand….

 
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T-Mac rental part of summer plans

The Knicks have made a habit over the years of bringing in guys with nothing left in the tank, guys who could have/should have been Knicks earlier in their careers when their particular skill set would have made a difference.

Think of players like Kiki Vanderwegh and Terry Cummings, or the former sharpshooter Rolando Blackman and former all-world guard Anfernee Hardaway. Tracy McGrady, who apparently will join the team for the remainder of the season, seems to be the latest addition to the club.

T-Mac was a star earlier in his career, whose brightness has been dulled by injuries.

So why bring him in and why cut loose rookie power forward Jordan Hill? Money. McGrady adds another expiring contract to a team loaded with expiring contracts meaning the Knicks could be more than $35 million under the salary cap when the off-season starts — an off-season in which Lebron James, Dwayne Wade, Chris Bosh, Joe Johnson and others will be available.

That’s a lot of cash to go after some significant star power — and it leaves open a good possibility that the team could find a way to retain all-star David Lee if everything breaks right. As things stand, the team is committed to only a few players next year — most notably the young wings (Wilson Chandler and Danillo Gallinari) and guard Andrew Toney. (Eddy Curry also is on the books, I believe, a sad reminder of the pre-Donnie Walsh era.)

The team better snag a couple of names, because the fans have been waiting for too long just for this club to be competitive.

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