Speak for yourself. I don’t think I ever gave up on Ariza or Balkman. And Lee pretty much has been the same guy since his second season. And I don’t think I’ve overreacted to Chandler’s promise.

Mike – I was generalising about the Knick fanbase as a whole which seems more prone to praise and then give up on young players, than many other fanbases. I also never gave up on Ariza and am still to this day depressed about the Balkman trade I was just stating what I have noticed, especially on less rational boards than this one. I have also been a staunch Lee defender for years.

To add one last thought to the Curry discussion, I think he was and can still be a useful player, his strength is just very specific and he is in all other ways limited. I believe that his ability in the post, if exploited correctly, could be a great asset to the right team in the right system. We had neither and despite that with him as the focal point we had one of the best offenses in the NBA for about two and a half months before Lee, Q and Crawford all went down.

I love advanced stats, and I think it is possible to defend Curry using them which I did in the past but I have also discussed Curry ad nauseum and I do not feel the need to begin again. With that said, at this point, I want him long gone especially after not showing up in shape.

Guys, why has Curry made the Knicks worse on offense every year he has been here? Honestly. Solve that puzzle for me…

OK – while I try and answer this puzzle for you, solve this puzzle for me: why isn’t Mike Sweetney a superstar? Advanced stats would have predicted that he would be.

Most obvious reasons Curry made the offense worse– he’s just not that good, has no will to improve or to win.

Other possible reasons:
#1 – bad coaching of his skills (what a shocker in the Isiah regime!)
#2 – bad teammates that don’t complement his game
#3 – poor coaching adjustments when teams change defense to counteract Curry’s success (another shocker!)
#4 – poor offensive sets to take advantage of his skills

Most obvious reasons are most likely reasons as well.
But you can’t tell me that Greg Popovich couldn’t have made him a better player. Or that Larry Brown, given a few years of no Marbury or other sideshows, couldn’t have made him a better player. or that he wouldn’t benefit from going to a real big man camp (like the one that Andrew Bynum went to 2 summers ago).

And by the way, it doesn’t require advanced stats to see he has no effort, no heart, doesn’t care about basketball, and that a drop of a hat, fumbles the ball away.

Thanks for expressing things better than I ever could.

I learn a lot from the more hard core stats oriented people here and generally agree with most of what they have to say, but I think the complexity of the game makes it difficult to analyze everything in terms of numbers. So I try to incorporate more visual/subjective elements that have been useful to me elsewhere into my analysis of basketball players/teams. At times that can lead me astray because I’m not a great basketball coach, great scout etc…, but at times I think it puts me ahead of the curve. It’s certainly worth exploring without be trashed for not going along with the popular view on some things. ;-)

“But there was a mid season stretch in his high usage year where he was scoring 20 PPG at a very high efficiency DESPITE being double and triple teamed every night. His slow start in that season kind of hides what he was doing in the middle of that season until he got hurt late. Some if it was simply an increase in minutes and touches, but he had never put up those kinds of numbers despite being doubled and tripled every night.”
Lord….
IS = Look. Curry has never ever ever been a good basketball player. Not in Chicago, not in New York, not for stretches, not for anything. This is the worst rebounding “starting” center in the NBA. This is arguably the worst defensive center in the NBA. This is the guy whose “best” season saw him become one of only two centers to ever play 25 minutes per game and average less than 10 rebounds and more than 5 turnovers per 48. (Darryl Dawkins was the other one). He has never had a positive offensive +/- for the knicks.
Your theory of basketball is just totally bizarre to me. The only thing you seem to care about is the ability to draw a double or triple team and the ability to “stretch the floor” with a midrange jump shot.
Look, stats aren’t perfect, but they tell you a great deal about a player. You should pay a little more attention to them.

To be fair, Owen, basketball does come down to more than stats. By your standards, every team should have pass first shoot second players high-efficiency, low-usage players at every position which would lead to a lot of passing, little shooting, and ultimately bad offense. All this talk about good ball movement within the offense will always lead to better shots than 1-on-1 is mostly true, but sometimes the defense is good enough to take you out of your offense, and then what? you’re stuck with 1-on-1 at the end of shot clock, and it IS valuable to have a guy like Crawford who can get a higher percentage shot at the end of the shot clock than can someone like Chris Duhon. of course layups are higher percentage. But it’s tough to shoot a layup surrounded by people packed into the lane, much easier to shoot a layup if you have floor spacing and threats form the outside that the other team must respect. As such, there IS value to drawing a double or triple team. There IS value to spacing the floor. It may not be evaluable in statistical form but anyone who has ever actually played the game will tell you that it’s a lot easier to shoot when there’s no one around you, either close to or away from the basket. And that happens with screens etc. but is made much easier by proper spacing (which allows for effective screens, pick-and-rolls etc.) and the ability to threaten the defense from anywhere on the floor, including from mid- and 3-point range.

Stats are obviously important and advanced stats are useful tools to ferret out guys who may not be valued highly enough. But for every Jose Calderon that advanced stats finds, you get one Mike Sweetney. For every David Lee you find, you get one Stromile Swift.

Now I can’t stand Eddy Curry as a player but I agree with IS — 2 years ago when he got on a roll in the middle of the season, he pressured defenses into collapsing on him because he was such a good scorer in the post. YES — he’s a crappy passer. YES — he’s a turnover machine. But NO — that does not make the ability to force the defense to change what it’s doing a bad thing — it’s still really good. And part of why his stats were not great overall is because when he would finally pass out to an open guy, Mardy Collins would brick it. Or Jefferies would shoot a 19 foot jumper and draw air. It’s like having a great running game in football but having a crappy QB that can’t capitalize on play-action passing. Does that mean that having a great running game is no good? of course not. But at the end of the day, the QB was 0-1 on that pass, so by stats, having a good running game does not actually improve your passing game, when common sense dictates otherwise. I don’t think Curry is any good, but I definitely think he would have been FAR better had he gotten any support from his teammates.

Look, I really like statistical analysis and I think it’s really interesting and insightful (and Mike, I love the website and the discussion), but I honestly find it sort of annoying when the “Stats guys” here condescend to perfectly knowledgeable and reasonable basketball fans like IS with statements like “Look, stats aren’t perfect but they tell you a great deal about a player. You should pay a little more attention to them” and “Your theory of basketball is just totally bizarre to me” — especially when advanced stats is clearly an imperfect science and has probably as many misses as hits on the non-obvious players.

Curry’s limitations have been obvious to everyone for a very long time. I don’t disagree with much of what you or others have said. I believe earlier in the thread I said it would only be possible to win with him if you combined him with a specific type of PF.

IMO, you don’t have to be one of the all time great centers to be considered a good player. There are good centers that can’t score much. They play very good defense, block shots, rebound etc… There are also good centers that play efficient offense that can’t play very good defense. If you can do both you are a great center.

IMO, if a center can only do one of the two very effectively, he needs to be paired with a player that compliments his skills to get better results. If you don’t, the results will be horrible for the indivdiual players and the team (like pairing Curry with Randolph or if you combined a defensive center like Dalembert with a defensive PF and SF).

And to be clear, I already AM looking at the same stats you are. The difference is that they do not dictate any of my opinions. I use them as a tool to enhance my visual observations of the players, the game development, the team, etc…

I also use a very subjective analysis to upgrade and downgrade a players stats if IMO there were specific circumstances that influenced the results for parts of the season that are not indicative of his real ability.

So even though I might be looking at the same things as you, I will often have a very different opinion. That’s because my analysis contains a more comprehensive but very subjective element to it that some people might not agree with or even consider. That style is based on the type of analysis I use profitably in horseracing where raw stats aren’t profitable but subjective visual analysis is very helpful.

Not asking that you agree with me. I have no desire to debate or argue with anyone. I have a desire to express an opinion, enjoy the Knicks, and eventually learn enough to win money betting on this game too. IMO, that will require more than just stats.

Lord….

IS = Look. Curry has never ever ever been a good basketball player. Not in Chicago, not in New York, not for stretches, not for anything. This is the worst rebounding “starting” center in the NBA. This is arguably the worst defensive center in the NBA. This is the guy whose “best” season saw him become one of only two centers to ever play 25 minutes per game and average less than 10 rebounds and more than 5 turnovers per 48. (Darryl Dawkins was the other one). He has never had a positive offensive +/- for the knicks.

Your theory of basketball is just totally bizarre to me. The only thing you seem to care about is the ability to draw a double or triple team and the ability to “stretch the floor” with a midrange jump shot.

Look, stats aren’t perfect, but they tell you a great deal about a player. You should pay a little more attention to them.

Even if we can’t maybe PEJ will turn out to be a better version of him.

If PEJ ever puts up the kind of steals/blocks/rebounding numbers Balkman had in 06-07, I’ll be beyond shocked.