Monthly Archives: September 2008
Well, the Stephon Marbury circus has found itself back in New York for yet another training camp. As camp opens up, any positive emotions and excitement that should come with a new season have been mauled by the frenzy created by Marbury’s mere presence. Donnie Walsh has made it clear that he is not going to buy out Marbury until all other options (and I mean ALL other options) have been exhausted. While Marbury has no place on this team, Walsh would be stupid to cut Marbury before he absolutely had to do so.
Most Knicks fans understand that despite Marbury’s talent (which has diminished in his time as a Knick), it is his attitude that has butchered the Knicks’ last few seasons. There is always a story with him. And that story never has a happy ending; not for Marbury, not for the Knicks, and especially not for Knicks fans.
I think everyone realizes that Marbury’s presence on the roster this season will deter the Knicks from heading into the right direction. That is not really much of a question. The question I have for everyone out there is a bit tougher to answer. Training camp is supposed to be a time when the team begins to gel together and begins to progress as one cohesive unit. The longer Marbury sticks around, the longer it will take for the glue of this team to dry. So, has Walsh waited too long to rid the Knicks of this distraction? Is Walsh too late? Or when is it too late?
Again, I believe that Walsh has to expend all other options before getting rid of Marbury. All possible trade scenarios must be exhausted. But by the time Walsh does that, will Marbury have already branded his negative impression on the 2008-2009 Knicks team? How late is too late?
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David Lee knows what he has to do.
When I asked him what his feelings were, being one of the most productive players per minute in the NBA yet still having to sit behind guys that make more money, he was very clear.
“Those guys (Curry and Randolph) are veterans and I should be behind them. I was a late lottery pick. I came in here knowing Channing (Frye) was a lottery pick and was going to get the first crack (at the starting role). I just have to keep working hard night after night.”
Don’t let him fool you, he wants to start. He’s a winner and that’s a winner’s mentality. Tiger Woods has always had respect for Jack Nicklaus records, but knew in his heart he could win 50 majors. He’s being a good teammate, and quickly morphing into a leadership role in his 4th year.
Lee has plenty in his favor. We’ve heard that Donnie Walsh has settled on the idea of giving Lee a much-deserved extension, but he’ll have every opportunity to earn it. He will see plenty of minutes and I wouldn’t be surprised if he wins a starting forward spot out of the gate. He’s comfortable in this system, remember he played in Billy Donovan’s 40 minute pressing style at Florida.
He’s also ready to show fans how hard he’s worked on his jumper this off season.
“I think fans will be surprised, ” he told me. “It’s a confidence thing, and I’ve found it.”
If that’s the case, Lee won’t find himself on the bench very often, and he may find himself on the All-Star team.
What was apparent yesterday, the whole thing about the players being tired of Steph’s act was reiterated
by the Bergan Record as well.
But was is more intriguing is that the window of teams who Marbury could go to seem to be closing fast. The Celtics re-signed Sam Cassell and word out of Miami is that the Heat are close to coming to terms with Shaun Livingston, the talented guard who’s year, and career, were damaged by a freekish knee injury.
Former Los Angeles Clippers point guard Shaun Livingston has patiently sought out a team to take a chance on his rehabilitated left knee. Signs point to the Miami HEAT seriously considering giving Livingston their Bi-Annual Exception for two years, starting at $1.91 million.
Under the quirks of the Collective Bargaining Agreement, Livingston’s eight-figure cap hold needed to be off the Clippers’ books in order for the team to sign guard Baron Davis and trade for power forward/center Marcus Camby.
LA offered Livingston a guaranteed one-year minimum deal which would have restored Livingston’s Bird Rights next summer – and enable the Clippers to re-sign him to a high dollar deal should his play (and health) warrant it.
Livingston’s camp informed Los Angeles that they could do better elsewhere. To date, teams like the Portland Trail Blazers and Minnesota Timberwolves ultimately passed on the still recovering guard.
Enter the HEAT who have the relatively unproven Marcus Banks, Mario Chalmers and Chris Quinn at the point. Banks does not appear to be in the team’s long-term vision and if healthy, Livingston has nothing but tremendous upside.
No deal has been announced but the buzz is that it could be close. The second year is rumored to be a team option.
Should Miami fall through, don’t expect the Clippers to come calling. After point guard Jason Williams surprisingly retired before camp, a spot arguably opened up on the roster but the team is comfortable with the tandem of Baron Davis, veteran Jason Hart and rookie Mike Taylor (non-guaranteed).
Should this happen, Donnie Walsh has a decision to make. Keeping Steph would tarnish what he is trying to build, unless he is comfortable tanking this season. Just ask Nate or Crawford, how they feel about #3′s presense. Other options, aside from a buyout, would be to call Warriors GM Chris Mullin and ask about the availability of Al Harrington, who is said to be on the blocks.
A Marbury-for-Harrington deal straight up does not work, as both teams are over the cap, so a potential third team would have to be involved. The Boston Globe reported two days ago that fans should not be surprised if a blockbuster deal went down during the preseason with some notable names mentioned ( Iverson, Marion, Marbury, Vince Carter and Harrington.)
Who knows what will happen next, but one thing’s for sure, if Walsh wants to build something starting now he has to move Marbury, and the teams said to be destinations seem to be dwindling by the second.
I think Steph lasts a few days at camp and will be sent packing. Where we don’t know…
Update: The thing I take from this day is the awkwardness that filled the room. A lot of walking on egg
shells. I think that it centers on Marbury, the players seem to want to move on, but can’t with the Marbury distraction. He obviously hasn’t talked with his teammates, and they don’t mind. Marbury left the room early without talking to any players as far as I could see.
Jamal Crawford is a leader. He always stands up and speaks openly, another year comes in and I find myself really rooting for him. I hope he becomes the complete player we all think he can be.
What’s not to like about David Lee? He simply wants to win. “We’ve had 75 years of drama in the last two years,” he told me. “But I want to be here when this thing turns around.” I hope he’s here too, I asked him about sitting behind Curry and Randolph despite being one of the NBA’s most productive players per minute and he told me “I knew I’d have to wait. I came in here sitting behind Channing Frye who was a lottery pick. I’ll just keep working hard night after night.”
Expect Houston to be a part of this team one way or another this year. He’s not here for a few weeks, he’s here to spread the word of Knick lore and feels very strongly about it. (By the way, if that picture above doesn’t tell you which direction the team wants to go in, I don’t know what does…)
“I can see it in the fans’ faces and I know what it was like to have success here, being a Knick means so much to me,” H20 told me.”I’m here to try and give these guys a feel of what it means to have success in this city and that it’s important to have pride in this jersey.”
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12:30 Eddy Curry seems to be where the reporters are flocking to. He’s wearing his warmup but says he’s in 
good shape. He said with D’Antoni here it’s hard not to be in good shape. He doesn’t appear to have lost any weight.
Steph is next and as you can imagine is being mobbed. His tatoo is pretty cool. He seems a little touchy. He doesn’t seem real happy to be here and I can’t say I blame him He just wants to play, we’ll see where soon enough.
His response to whether he’s spent time with new teammates.
“Next question.”
Sat with Allan Houston who is absolutely the best. He’s here to spread and pass along what it means to wear the jersey, which is music to a fan’s ears.
Professionalism either on or off the court.
Spoke to Gallinari too and he’s still a ways away hasn’t done much conditioning due to his back, and he’s not sure when he’ll be back. His timetable has yet to be set.
Steph’s still at it…” I want to win a championship here in NY. I’m a knick until something else happens.”
Eddy Curry on defense:
“It’s a matter of pride.”
I have to say that the set up is pretty funny. All players sitting at tables like at a restaurant waiting for their dates to arrive. ZBo’s tucked away in the back corner.
David Lee felt for Mets fans and talked to David Wright yesterday. Lee wants to win and wants to be here,addressed the Memphis rumors and said Walsh told him that “we won 23 games last year and if I didn’t try to improve the team, I wouldn’t be doing my job. It’s flattering when teams call and ask for you.”
ZBo knows D’antoni’s system and thinks he’ll have plenty of chances to shoot jumpers and he has nothing bad to say about Marbury.
Zach claims to be in “okay shape.”
Caught up to my man Brandon Tierney who has these thoughts on Marbury heading into the year- “if I were running the Knicks I’d have a hard time keeping Steph because of what they are trying to build. But it looks like they are giving him a chance to succeed.”
BT has some great audio tonight so check out the radio show on 1050…..
I recently had the chance to sit down with Dan Isenberg, who runs an awesome new blog called
Westcheddar, which highlights to goings on of people doin’ their thing and who are from Westchester County.
Check out the Q & A.
The New York Knicks have had a tough time winning ballgames the past few years. It seems like forever since they were an actual threat to other teams in the NBA. Tommy Dee, who covers the beat for SNY-TV’s theknicksblog.com, called a time out to tell us here at Westcheddar what to expect from our beloved Knickerbockers this season. Check it out…
IP: Ok, Tommy Dee, how bad are the Knicks going to be this year? It’s been miserable trying to root for them lately. Any hope?
TD: This year? I would say no, but stranger things have happened. If they make the playoffs they lose a first round pick, and there are some solid point guards to be had in next year’s lottery in Ricky Rubio, who played on Spain’s Olympic team, and Brandon Jennings. Knick fans should hope for a competitive season without making the playoffs. Somewhere around 33 to 35 wins. more.
Editor’s Note- The Knicks have to finish with a top 7 record in the NBA this year in order for the Jazz to receive the 2009 pick. Next year they get it either way, unprotected. So the Knicks have plenty to play for this year…We apologize for the error.
We’ll be there tomorrow and judging from many reports in today’s papers, it’s going t
o be a madhouse.
Marc Berman is reporting Danilo Gallinari will be out most of preseason and is a candidate for the development league.
The Daily News grabbed an Eastern Conference president who agrees with us:
“Who cares if they have to eat $22 million and he goes to Miami? They need a fresh start in the Garden and that means Marbury needs to go.”
We’ve been looking forward to tomorrow, so check in for live real-time blog updates, like we did a the NBA draft and lottery, from media day.
This is a situation really worth paying attention to.
In a time of great financial despair, it would seem as if the Cablevision empire is still on relatively solid ground, so money continues to not be an issue for James Dolan.
However, Dolan mandated that there would be no buyouts under the Isiah Thomas mess, instead forcing Zeke to prove that his acquisitions were good ones. Now that Zeke is out and Donnie Walsh is in charge, does he have all the tools necessary to dump Marbury, Jerome James, and Malik Rose by just writing a check and saying goodbye?
“I don’t know,” Walsh was quoted as saying on Hahn’s blog. “I haven’t asked the question yet.”
“I was doing this in Indiana for a long time and I can’t remember buying out a contract,” he said. “I really can’t. I dealt with it with trades, I guess. I always tried not to do that. That isn’t good management if you have to do that.”
Good management or not, these aren’t Walsh’s guys. He likes Patrick Ewing Jr, and apparently Anthony Roberson, enough to sign him to a contract, as he also did with Chris Duhon.
Walsh knew going in that he had a full roster. So why add more players? I would make sense that it was a case of out with the old and in with the new.
But will he rid the old? There’s no need for Marbury on this roster. Give him a check for $21 million and be done with him, that seems logical enough. And Malik Rose? With ZBo, David Lee and Wilson Chandler and Danilo Gallinari expected to see minutes at the 4, you can what’s the need for Rose? Obviously no team is interested in swapping for Marbs and Rose’s 28 million cap relief, at least there hasn’t been any nibbles to this point.
So as we head into training camp, Walsh has 17 players for 15 spots, so two won’t make it out of Saratoga.
Or two could have a nice fat check waiting for them with a note saying, “Don’t let the door hit ya…”
It’s a question he HAS to ask.
Today Knicks coach Mike D’Antoni payed a visit to WFAN’s Mike Francesa. Besides the
usual cliché, “I’m real excited to get going” and “We just gotta play hard”. D’Antoni did share somethings that were somewhat interesting:
D’Antoni stressed that Stephon Marbury won’t be a distraction. he said, “When you win only 23 games most players on the roster know there will be changes”.
He added, Marbury and Zach Randolph still being here in NY doesn’t change his overall plan. They and other players on the team have talent and can fit in this or any system. ”My philosophy is something I will keep. Some will fit and other’s might have some adjustments to make, it shouldn’t effect most of the players, that’s why we have coaches”….”Definitely anyone can fit in this system. Shaq did, Kurt Thomas did.”
He said he has realistic expectations and if “they play hard”, “wins will follow”, “excitement will follow”… ”Part of me gets real excited with what I see but I can’t put a number (wins) on it”. I know, I know, I said besides the usual cliche’, but, I had to fit at least one or two in.
When asked about Danilo Gallinari D’Antoni said “He will probably be a little slow coming out of the gates because of his back issues. We will be cautious and we will go slow with him because he’s only 20 years old. But I expect around Christmas time he’ll get a head of steam and by real good for us”.
D’Antoni also said that Patrick Ewing Jr. was a little better offensively than people give him credit for and that he’s looking forward to working with him.
Walsh was also on and had some interesting things to say about Marbury.
- Reported by Peter Wade
ESPN.com columnist John Hollinger, a good friend of TKB, and the lone intelligent voice on that website, described his self-developed Player Efficiency Rating (PER) as “summing up a player’s positive accomplishments, subtracting the negative accomplishments, and returning a per-minute rating of a player’s performance.”
Simple enough, right? Still, many teams, scouts, and “pundits” don’t buy into the mathematical analysis. First and foremost, many talent evaluators will place athleticism over production at the college level. Obviously a 6’5″ power forward who averages 19 points a game in a mid-major won’t be able to adjust to the professional level. But, after a while, shouldn’t teams pick up on the fact that role players who knock down open jumpers and play sound defense are more valuable than high-flying swingmen who can’t shoot? Or say, overweight centers?
The prime example is none other than the San Antonio Spurs who last season, started two undrafted players in Bruce Bowen and Fabricio Oberto. And, as one scout noted, “If they went to the NBA Pre-Draft camp this summer, neither of them would have had a chance of getting selected.”
It’s no surprise that the majority of the Knicks do not fare very well in this statistic considering the team finished 29th out of 30 last year in team efficiency. Here are the individual numbers from last season, with the player’s ranking among his position in parentheses.
PG
Stephon Marbury PER 13.84 Minutes Per Game 33.6 (26/70)
Chris Duhon PER 11.13 Minutes Per Game 22.6 (55/70)
Mardy Collins PER 5.89 Minutes Per Game 13.8 (70/70)
SG
Jamal Crawford PER 15.99 Minutes Per Game 39.9 (21/67)
Nate Robinson PER 15.38 Minutes per game 26.1 (23/67)
SF
Wilson Chandler PER 11.70 Minutes Per Game 19.6 (48/65)
Quentin Richardson PER 8.54 Minutes Per Game 28.3 (58/65)
Jared Jeffries PER 7.95 Minutes Per Game 18.1 (60/65)
PF
Zach Randolph PER 18.04 Minutes Per Game 32.6 (13/62)
David Lee PER 18.01 Minutes Per Game 29.1 (14/62)
Malik Rose DID NOT REGISTER
C
Eddy Curry PER 15.08 Minutes Per Game 25.9 (25/60)
Jerome James DID NOT REGISTER
Newcomers: Anthony Roberson, Allan Houston, Dan Grunfeld, Danilo Gallinari, Patrick Ewing Jr.
As you can see, none of the Knicks other than Randolph and Lee really fared well in this statistic. Again, this is a stat that I find to be incredibly important. I understand the critic’s point of view who will say that the game is played on the court and not on a calculator. But, when you see LeBron James, Chris Paul, Amare Stoudemire, Kevin Garnett, and Dirk Nowitzki as the five most efficient players in the league, you realize that this is not some arbitrary formula.
If you look at the significant minutes played by inefficient players such as Richardson, Marbury, and to an extent Crawford, you wonder how much of an improvement the team would have if they were to just give the most minutes to the five best players. Seems logical that over the course of the season, if your five most efficient players lead your team in minutes, then your number of wins will increase.
This is where Mike D’Antoni comes into play. While in Phoenix he was notorious for having an incredibly well-conditioned team and a very short player rotation that varied anywhere between 7 and 9. (Albeit, much of that was due to the makeup of their roster). He owes no duty to any of Isiah’s guys, whereas Isiah felt compelled to play his acquisitions in an attempt to justify the reason.
Should training camp and the preseason prove that one of the team’s five most efficient players is an unlikely source such as Chandler, Gallinari, or even Roberson or Ewing, Jr., I feel that D’Antoni will have the cajones to sit a high-priced player.
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