The Lost Decade: A Look Back

I still say Jerome James was the worst thing to happen to this franchise over the past decade.

IT was bad. Curry awful. Marbury hurt the franchise on and off the court. Larry Brown was an embarrasment. But Jerome James did absolutely nothing for the franchise. Not one thing. He didn’t impact one game positively. Inexcusable.

Thats what happens when you give a player a huge contract after they have had literally a handful of good games. How sad is it that Marbury is only the THIRD worst signing by the Knicks over the past decade? Walsh didn’t have the best draft ever, but he is so much better than Isiah and Layden.

I’d have to say Eddy Curry was the worst move ever by this franchise rather than Jerome James. Jerome James never cost us multiple draft picks and a bloated contract like Curry. Sure James was a bad signing too but in my opinion, Curry was hands down the worst. Everyone thought the Marbury signing initially was great but everyone forgot how much of a headcase he was until he was a Knick. Marbury and Isiah as well really made the Knicks an embarrassment. Every GM thought they could pull a fast one on Isiah.
Scott Layden was no better with ridiculous moves like trading Marcus Camby and a draft pick (Nene Hilario) for Antonio McDyess who just got off microfracture knee surgery. And giving huge contracts to Shandon Anderson and Howard Eisley.
I hope we can put this miserable 10 years of Knick signings and trades away by having a good free agent/draft summer.

id say that this all started with scott layden piling up the knicks with these untradeable contracts and when they did become tradeable in their expiring years they would b traded for more bloated contracts when isiah came tryin to make a quick fix!!
we were pretty respecatble until 2004 where we made the playoffs but it was the 2004-05 season that we started becoming the team titanic!!

and a combination of all those players mentioned above such as curry and james, jeffries, marbury , Q etc… was not a goood mix!!!!

Probably really started when we traded Ewing for Luc Longley and Glen Rice….terrible. We’ve had the curse of Ewing ever since.

i disagree.. Snacks was a terrible signing.. but it was ONLY for mid level money over 5 years…hardly huge money.. and we were way over the cap anyway.

granted he did absolutely nothing when he was here but it didnt hurt us too bad.. And we traded him with 2 years left on his deal.

The worst signing hands down was the Allan Houston extension.that crippled the franchise for five years at least.

Repeat after me..Luc Longley..That was the first domino to fall and start the train wreck that has been the NY Knicks. Now, I say thank you to Jim Dolan (Yessss THAT Jim Dolan), I say thank you for finally recognizing that Isaiah had to go. I say thank you for bringing in Donnie Walsh, a respected basketball man. Thank you Donnie Walsh for trying to set this ship right and get us back on the path to respectability. Even if we don’t get Lebron this summer, after looking at this video, I truly believe that you did the right thing, we had to do this. We needed to flush the stench of the last decade down the toilet and start this thing over. Once the draft is done and Eddy is gone, we can finally move on and put it all behind us. This video was an embarrassing reminder of why we’re a laughing stock.

At least Jerome James just sat on the bench and never had any impact, let alone a negative one. Jared Jeffries killed this franchise far more. He was and is one of the worst basketball players ever. How many 6’11″ guys can’t even make an uncontested layup? Watching him year in and year out killed a little piece of me every time. There will never be a basketball player that makes me more frustrated than Jared Jeffries did. Although Al Harrington came pretty close in his 2 seasons. If I see him back in a Knicks uniform that might be it for me.

my vote has to be Curry. Only because he truly could have been a contender. Yes, Jeffries drove me nuts too. But the guy simply lacks talent. James I never expected anything from, but Curry did show some real promise in Chicago and I was truly joyful when we got him, heart problem and all. Having to witness how year after year this guy just couldn’t/wouldn’t get it together still drives me nuts.

man, this video really is painful to watch. I have to youtube LJ’s 4 point play to cleanse myself..

Snacks juiced us playing like a legit center in that one playoff round and then as you said K4L, he gave us NOTHING BUT I thought signing Eddy right after getting Snacks was a HUGE IT blunder.

The possible picks lost because of obtaining Curry killed us also and the walking wounded McDyess pickup

Although not technically this decade, not drafting Ron Artest was the start.

Not letting Ewing expire, Allan’s extension, and Layden’s vision for Utah East just reflected the short term thinking and disregard for the salary cap. It’s almost as if their attitude was that we are the Knicks, we have all of this money to spend, and we will never be under the cap to sign the big FA’s. The same sort of attitude that this franchise has had for many years, even from the 70′s through the 90′s. Check the draft history and you will see how many #1′s we gave away trying to sign a washed up veteran.

Not having the vision to draft an Amare or even keep Nene was a huge mistake in what was a PF heavy draft. That reflected other contant Knick theme of believing that Knicks fans are not patient enough to allow a young draft pick to develop. That was the thought behind the trade for McDeyss.

I can’t play Monday morning QB and denounce the Marbury trade because I, like most people were all for it. We gave up very little and you can’t fault IT for making that deal and including a draft pick that was protected until 2010, regardless of how mad we all are now. IT obviously drafted well in 04 by finding Ariza.

I was pretty happy with the Jamal Crawford trade as I watched him destroy us many times and we gave up garbage to get him. The team actually played well and was in first place before he got hurt during the 04-05 season.

That brings us to the summer of 05 where it all blew up. The Knicks start of with 2 picks. There is an obvious need for a center, so why not draft Bynum to be your center of the future? IT declines based on the theory that Knicks fans would not wait for a young center to develop. So what does he do, he drafts a soft PF who we all liked at first, but later complain because he is soft. Well, we knew that prior to the draft. Compounding the issue is that not only do we sign JJ Snacks, we also then hurt his feelings by making the E. Curry trade. I mean, we could have just drafted a center instead of signing for one and trading for another. (will discuss further below).

I though trading Kurt Thomas for Q was ridiculous just to get Nate. We didn’t need that extra pick that bad. Regardless, I did like Jarrett Jack and Francisco Garcia better. Can’t complain about he D. Lee pick.

Back to Curry. In all honesty, the jury was still out on this trade after a few years because Curry was ballin’ and Ty Thomas and Noah were going through some grwoing pains. In fact, many of us we still ok with this deal until Curry started going through all of his drama and fell apart. Now the trade looks terrible. On paper, if Curry plays up to his potential (a big if), then this deal is at worst a draw. This obviously didn’t happen, so now it ranks as a terrible deal. That is the only reason as Thomas may never be good, and as much as I like Noah’s grit, I still think he is a bit overrated.

As I look back here, my main issue is that we should have just drafted Bynum and Lee. We could have then taking Aldridge or Roy the following year as well as Rondo. Yeah, we could have taken him instead of Balkman. Imagine, this could have realistically happened:

Bynum – C
Lee – PF
Ariza – SF
Roy – SG
Rondo – PG

All in 3 years work. We wouldn’t even be talking about these problems right now with this line-up . I caution in that this assumes that Larry Brown would have allowed this to work. We forget that coaching is also important.

I guess we can continue to go on with the rest of IT’s disfinctional regime, but it has been stated more then enough. Sorry about the length but these are the things that I think about all of the time as a Knick fan. All of the mistakes that we could have just avoided. Hopefully, we’ll get it right in July.

woow- you cleared it up perfect for us- but i think drafting was one of isiahs strengths to go along with his end of game strategies!!

the problem with all that was allowing layden change our team into the jazz and giving isiah so much power and authority without any previous experience that qualifies him enough to do that!!!
donnie walsh has that knid of experience- i think we all trust him – fail or not hes been loyal to us and hes following his plan!!!!!!!

trading PATRICK,instead of letting his contract run out,was the absolute worst thing that ever happened to this team,HANDS DOWN!!!!! We just recovered from signing “BIG SNACKS” But the EWING trade we may never recover from the aura of that deal.That deal was the one that made the KNICKS look stupid and inept.Everything else that was stupid just seemed to follow.It will continue,unless we can figure out a way to stop it.Big signings are not the answer,it is far mor subtle than that and will take a man with a soul and a heart for the way the game used to be played..(it aint D’antoni or Walsh)

Great Post!!!

The worst decision was by far, Eddie Curry. We gave up way too much for him.

Great video Pavs. Sorta makes the pain of the last decade easier to swallow by looking at it in a comedic light and knowing that we’ll be turning the page soon.

Hopefully.

hehe thanks – and yeah the least we can do is laugh back at those years as they will be marked as the lost decade!! hopefullly next year ill be making a serious mix!!!