Totally agree with you regarding the inherent flaws of Atkins. I would say that the main drawback is that consuming that much meat (and animal hormones/steroids) is terrible for your long-term health, especially your liver and/or cholesterol levels.

I lost a chunk of weight on Atkins (30 lbs or so) but my body figured out what I was doing (artificially bringing on a state of ketosis) and the pounds stopped dropping. In addition, I just didn’t feel good doing it. Since then I’ve switched to a gluten and cholesterol-free plan that’s been much better.

But for Curry, for a kid who’s probably never dieted before in his life, the quick-weight loss you get in the first two weeks of Atkins coupled with the fact that his overall eating habits wouldn’t change much, might not be bad to start with.

Then again, he can certainly afford a personal che who could cook him gourmet meals 24/7 that would conform to ANY diet plan. So forget everything I just said about Curry and Atkins.

And then again, my “source” is a random Gus Johnson quote during the last game of the year, and so who knows what diet he is or is not on.

PS – did anyone catch Lee’s interview on WFAN? He mentioned he’s shooting “1000 mid-range jumpers a day”.

Go David!

Some random points:

A. The Jerome Williams comparison. Balkman can get the rebound, THEN put it on the floor and bring the ball up and dunk it on people like Dallas’ Josh Howard. I never saw Jerome Williams do that during his career.

B. “Eddy Curry has no jumpshot.” Are you kidding me? Did you see the game where he hit the three pointer at the buzzer to force overtime? The man is 2-2 in his career from three point land. All kidding aside, I do think Eddy Curry’s limitations are only on the defensive end, and I would argue that his jumpshot is SUPERIOR to Dwight Howard’s at this point, only Yao is a better shooting all star-caliber center as of right now.

C. “In that scenario, the Knicks take Marcus Williams, Jordan Farmar, or Sergio Rodriguez, three points guards who are better than the one they did pick, Mardy Collins, and still get the player they want.”

Now clearly you didn’t see the last month Mardy Collins played and started for the Knicks in which he averaged nearly 17p 6a and 2.5st per game. The Knicks desperately need his size (6’6″ 225lbs) and defense in the backcourt with too many short guards (steph, nate, francis) or skinny guards (jamal, listed at 190lbs, but probably less). Not to mention Steph has a problem getting Curry the ball sometimes due to his height the passing lanes are fewer. Mardy got Curry the ball exactly where he wanted it. I’d take Mardy over any of those three that you listed, pal. I know you heard what Greg Anthony said on draft day, but Isiah looks beyond the obvious to spot real talent in the draft. I don’t want Laptop-stealing Marcus Williams, you can keep him. And the other two, well, lets just see how Mardy does against them in the upcoming season after Isiah buys out Steve Francis’ contract.

D. Renaldo Balkman did hit a few three’s this past season, but how many did he take? Seemed like he took almost two a game when he got decent minutes, like Lee, their ultimate success will hinge upon their ability to develop an effective Charles Oakley-style jump shot from 15 feet, it will be a bonus if they can develop post moves or three point range beyond that.

E. Playing balkman and lee at the same time can’t be done at this point because they both have the same weaknesses in a half court offense set. both are awesome players, particularly on the transition baskets, but if teams collapse down on Curry and neither of your two forwards can shoot, then you have to make yet another play to get the ball to the guards to shoot. that’s a big weakness, it makes having Curry a liability instead of an advantage on offense.

F. To say Curry was a “fairly effective post scorer” is kind of an understatement. 19.5 a game all in the paint is just a little better than fairly effective in my opinion. When ol’ Amare was doing that they were calling him manchild or beast, but the perception of curry around the league, depite averaging 19.5 over 81 games is more lazy, fat, what have you. He was unstoppable in the paint this year, only Yao and Okafor showed him up in the games that I watched, and I watched all 82 Knick games this season. That’s probably more than Mike Breen watched, the punk.

G. Lewis, Kobe, KG, even Jermaine, any of those guys would help, but how much can we offer to get any of them, and who would take Frye or Francis off isiah’s hands at this point? Q rich just had major back surgery, who knows what he’s going to play like next season? Look at how back surgery effected larry johnson’s game? he had to do all those silly spin moves just to get a shot off after that surgery. I would give up Curry, Marbury, or Crawford for any of the said all-stars, but Isiah seems like he wants to build around Curry. Nate is expendable with the addition of a stable guard like Mardy Collins.

Atkins may work for a time period, but ultimately what does it do? Teach poor eating habits. Instead of cutting out the bacon in the bacon cheeseburger, it teaches you to cut out the bread. So what happens when you get off the diet? You go back to eating bacon cheeseburgers, since that’s what you’ve been taught to eat.

I’m against diets that limit portion control or makes you select odd choices. You can only do these for a short period of time before reverting to your old habits. Making a lifestyle choice seems to be a better route.

For me, it was a modified south beach diet. I’m already fairly active, so I didn’t need to hit the gym or up my calorie burn. Basically I learned the importance of reducing the amount of sugars and processed grains in my diet. It’s all about replacing the bad stuff I ate with healthier choices. Instead of eating Chips Ahoy cookies, I can be satisfied with a 60 calorie chocolate pudding. Instead of having Cheerioes or an English muffin, I’d have whole grain cereal or
eggs & bacon (2 pieces only please, center cut if possible). Instead of fried chicken legs I get whole chicken breast. By making sacrifices in some areas I’m able to eat the things I really enjoy (Chinatown Ice Cream Factory, I’m looking at you).

In any case I know not all diets work for everyone. And I know there is evidence that Atkins is a legitimate for of dieting, since there is evidence that some people can keep the weight off afterwards. Atkins seems to outdo other diets in 6 months, but within a year, the results even out.
[/diet rant]

On offense, though, I think he’s almost one of a kind. Unlike Smits and Edwards, he has no jump shot. On the other hand, he is virtually unstoppable in the low post – one of the top 2 or 3 guys in the league. That is, if he could quit getting stripped and called for offensive fouls – he’s probably the worst in the league there. He’s young, though, and I do have hope for improvement there, unlike the rebounding and defense.

He’s a mix of extremes. On the whole, it adds up to a pretty average (and very overpaid) player. But, with the right teammates and coaching, I could see him being more valuable than that. It will be a big challenge to maximize the good, while camouflaging the bad. On offense, the best strategy would be to run constantly – to play as fast as the Nuggets or Suns. It’s counterintuitive, because Eddie is slow and struggles to stay in shape. But playing fast and shooting in the first 6 or 8 seconds on the shot clock would limit the other team’s ability to double-team, and potentially cut his turnovers way down. If he has to play fewer minutes – so be it.

Back in reality, I think David Lee can have a Horace Grant-like role in an offense. considering his FT% went from 57 to 81% this past season (and he was hitting the 20 footer in the summer league) I have no doubt that he can become an effective spot-up shooter like Oakley/Grant/Camby/PJ Brown/Buck Williams did later in their careers. It may not happen this offseason, but I can see him maxing out at 16ppg or so w/10 (or more) RPG.

Regarding Curry and Owen’s points — it seems to me that we’re dealing with a relatively small sample when it comes to players w/o college experience. If, the sample group begins w/Garnett in ’95, we’ve only got 10 years worth of players to track development and growth.

This pertains to Curry in that Centers as a whole do NOT develop skills like rebounding and shotblocking as they get older. Those skills tend to max out at a relatively young age. I.e. if a player isn’t a good rebounder at 23-24, he’s not going to get there at 28-29 (a Center’s “peak” performance years, historically). This would seem to relegate Eddy Curry to being a member of the Rik Smits/James Edwards/Joe Barry Carroll school of offensively talented and defensively deficient good but not great school of pivots. Then again, when it comes to centers straight out of HS, we may be dealing with a different developmental curve entirely.

Using 1995 aa a starting point. There are actually only a few players to evaluate

Kwame Brown
Tyson Chandler
Eddy Curry
Amare Stoudamire
Dwight Howard
Andrew Bynum

Considering none of these players has hit what are typically a center’s peak years, it’s way too soon to try to predict statistically if Eddy will be able to become better shotblocker/rebounder. The stats for the abouve quintet have pretty much stayed the same in terms of rebounds and blocks (i.e Howard/Stoudamire could rebound from day one,
Kwame Brown/Curry can’t). In either case, it’ll be interesting to see how/if Curry progresses.

On a side note — Curry’s on the Atkins Diet this offseason (Johnson mentions it during the last game of the year). I assume that means he’s basically eating fistfulls of bacon all day, but that diet does work (though you get nasty halitosis and chronic indigestion, as well as the fact that it’s pretty lousy for your health in general and perhaps not the greatest thing for a person w/a heart condition)

Owen,
One of my many co-authors plans on spending this summer looking at the link between age and performance. So at the moment I don?t know the answer to this question. But I hope to have an answer in a few months.

I still think Curry is terrible. Dont let anyone be confused on that point. But he is a scorer, and we need some scoring in the frontcourt if Lee and Balkman are going to play a lot. It’s just hard to get around the fact that Curry committed more turnovers than Steve Nash last season.

Crawford played the most minutes for the Knicks, until he went down. That is a really big problem. The guy doesnt score effectively. I would love to get rid of him, and if we could get a quality big back in Wilcox, fanstatic, although I dont see that happening.

I love Varejao, but I think he is too similar to Lee. Neither are true big men/interior defenders. We need someone who can actually block shots and defend the Okafor/Howard/Shaq/Odens of this world.

I dont know about Morris. We didnt really see enough from him to say what he brings to the floor. People here talk about him like he is another Curry, which is a bad thing in my book.