The Knicks have NO ONE deserving of the Franchise label (especially not the walking corpse of Steve Francis). Our two main scorers, Crawford and Curry, have glaring weaknesses on defense and decision making. Marbury is no longer dominant (maybe it was beat out of him by Larry Brown). We have no game changers outside of David Lee (all on hustle, we can’t run offense through him) and Curry (only on offense, no defense).

Still, if the Pistons could be so good without a franchise player, I’m hoping our guys can learn how to win too. But they’re not getting any younger. We really should have agreed to rebuild once Marbury and Crawforf didn’t put us over the top. Getting Curry was stalling the inevitable bottoming out we need to go through. I want Ariza back too.

As some sage pointed out in the original thread, Williams was playing 500/600 minutes at 10 mpg. Camby is a unique player and maybe it took a while to find his niche.

That being said, Curry was a year younger and rebounding as well (or better) than ever. He regressed last year making the improvement less likely.

Saying that Curry doesn’t need to rebound because of Q, Lee and Balkman is dumb. It limits Curry’s effectiveness and reduces strategic options. Yes his rebounding maybe negatively effected, but the Net game is a good example that every board counts.

http://www.knickerblogger.net/?p=358

David Lee is a natural rebounder. He’s not the tallest or the quickest or the strongest at his position, yet he is naturally drawn to the ball. Curry simply is not. I personally think that in my lifetime I will see David Lee with a lights out 18 foot set shot before I see Eddy Curry as a top 5 rebounder. It is not in his DNA.

If there are in fact examples of people who have apparently learned to rebound once established in the NBA, please name some, because I’m really not comfortable having the starting center have “no reason to work” for rebounds just because Lee, Balkman, and Q can bail out.

Forget the point guard of the Nets. Curry let Cliff Robinson tip in a game winner for exactly the points quoted above– he didn’t box out, presumably assuming Lee or Balkman would. As it was, his poor rebounding skills literally cost the Knicks that game.

And then there were the 48 other losses that he had his hand in, mostly helping the Knicks lose by missing six or seven free throws, or not helping out on defense, or turning the ball over (and over and over and over…).

Not that I’m blaming all the losses on Curry, or overlooking his offensive production that helped the Knicks win the games they did pull out. But Eddy is the “untouchable franchise player”, and it seems to me that he has his hand in too many of the losses and not enough of the wins.

There is a lot of talk of his minutes, but lets face it– I’m not sure I’m comfortable seeing his minutes go up because he probably shouldn’t be on the court during the closing minutes. His free throw shooting alone is one reason, but most centers who suck at free throw shooting (i.e. Shaq, Ben Wallace, etc…) make up for it by bringing something vital to crunch time, like say, strong defense and/or rebounding. Curry brings none of that, which is too bad, because the team’s “untouchable franchise player” should be on the court at the end of the game.

That said, help defense CAN BE LEARNED so Isiah better teach it to him and teach it fast…

and if Curry can get his free throw shooting up to a reasonable level his offensive game will improve exponentially…

and if he decides boxing out is a good thing he might be able to keep Cliff Robinson from stealing a victory next year…

and if he stops nullifying his own offensive contribution by turning the ball over and giving up double digit points-off-his-turnovers…

and the Bulls don’t land Kobe or Garnett with pieces accrued in the Crawford/Curry deals and Tyrus Thomas is a bust and whoever the Bulls draft #9 sucks too…

THEN I will feel really good about our “Untouchable Franchise Player”.

I had to quote it just to make sure I didn’t imagine it.

The teams starting center had no reason to work for rebounds? I think now I’ve seen it all.

But you are definitely right about turnovers being the major issue. Curry had 19 games this season in which his turnovers equaled or exceeded his rebound totals. Pretty amazing. And he never cracked the three assist mark this year, or last year actually.

His two main faults in my eyes are his turnovers and his god-awful defense. His is the most turnover prone player in the league (ahead of runner-ups Ben Gordon and Dwight Howard), leading the league in offensive fouls by 13 (23% greater than second place), third in bad pass-assist ratio (1.34), 8th in lost ball turnovers, and 1st in 3 second violations by 6 (21% more than second place).

That and his terrible defense, not even in reference to blocked shots but his man always beats him and gets dunks or easy shots for shooters because we have to rotate to cover his man. Can anybody find a place to find points and assists of the player he is guarding? I’m curious.

The average center has a win score of 10.8 per 48, or .225 per minute. Curry played 2850 minutes and produced a total Win Score of 462. An average center who played the same number of minutes would have produced a total winscore of 641.25.

Fabricio Oberto for instance was a .119 WP48 this year, or just above average. He had a net win score of 398.5, while playing almost 1100 less minutes less than Curry. Al Jefferson played 500 less minutes than Curry and accumulated 726.5 units of Win Score.

If you want to give Curry credit for playing those extra minutes, fair enough. but it doesn’t change the basic picture.