JPC’s Wifey:
Ok, I actually registered for KBer.Not that I’ll ever have anything intelligent to say.I just want you all to know… I CAN’T BELIEVE I’M BECOMING A KNICKS FAN!!!I really never thought it was possible to ever like a team not from Boston.But ok, I’ll admit, I love your city, the history of the team, and I HATE when the Knicks lose (mostly because I wake up the next morning to a ravaged living room and a grumpy husband – ok, jk about the LR).And, I think my hubby’s ingeniously witty – how could I not enjoy reading his stuff!?
Hey sweetie, didn’t my dad say something to the likes of, “I think Bibby’s dad could play better than Bibby right now”??Haha.Ok, GO CELTS! (oops sorry)

Historical moment in KB history.

The first comfirmed female commenter!

Way to break through the glass ceiling

Caleb: Let’s see, he led NBA rookies in blocks + steals his rookie year.. has good rates since… he’s been among top NBA SFs in rebound rate each year (1st his rookie year)… he is a pretty good ballhandler with a low turnover rate.. finishes well, etc. (all skills more valuable in a running team. vs. half-court but that’s another story). Brian is right that his banishment in NY says more about D’ANtoni than it does about Balkman.

I do think he’s had some off-court & personality issues that cause conflict with coaches..

funny i found him 9th in blocks and 8th in steals among rookies on nba.com

http://www.nba.com/statistics/player/Steals.jsp?league=00&season=22006&conf=OVERALL&position=0&splitType=9&splitScope=GAME&qualified=N&yearsExp=0&splitDD=

as to being a pretty good ball handler with low turn overs, a sf is supposed to be a ‘pretty good ball handler’ and he has low turnovers because he handles the ball very seldom on offense and when he does, he never puts it on the floor, so how when the knick’s offense is playing virtually 4 on 5 is he supposed to rack up turn overs?

as to finishing, anyone can finish on the break, but he is particularly weak finishing in traffic, imo.
who likes to run more than d’antoni and karl, yet they seem not to see the skillset you see.

i don’t know anything about him in the room, but there is one particular thing that bothers me about him and his lack of game. he has never improved any facet of his game.

i mean he must not work very hard because nothing he does gets better. are you telling me with allan houston sitting around he couldn’t have gotten some help with his shooting stroke and shot 500 3 balls after practice every day and become the next bruce bowen or even a mickeal pietrus.

i have a feeling this is what the coaches beef is with him…. not that he looks like he just smoked a…

Brian Cronin (@Brian_Cronin): Can you imagine what D’Antoni would have done with a young Dennis Rodman?

let me try to deconstruct your straw men one by one:

1…..imagine what d’antoni would have done with rodman. the obvious fair answer is we have no idea, but it isn’t just dantoni that gave balkman the bums rush, but dantoni, karl and thomas (who had a vested interest in him but couldn’t find serious rotation time for him).

i’m sure thomas visualized a poor man’s rodman when he drafted him, but in 2 seasons with him he found out reality is quite different than dreams.

and , of course, your what would d’antoni have done with rodman straw man ignores there are 29 other gm’s that also fail to see the brilliance you see in balkman.

2…Nate (dantoni sucks because he didn’t see nate’s brilliance , too strawman). Nate found himself in the doghouse because he was an undisciplined freak show, not a quality nba player.

all you need to know about nate is okc dumped him and paid his salary rather than have his immaturity polluting their possible championship run.

3… d’antoni shipped balkman off…… of course, walsh shipped balkman off and i can’t imagine he would have done that if he thought balkman had any value, so he must be stupid too.

bobneptune: this is a complete falsehood. i’m not implying it is done purposefully, but rather it is a manifestation of the stat fanboi balkman-o-phile’s selective memories.

he didn’t “play more as the year went on” coached by his drafting gm he played 15.6 mpg his first year and 14.6 mpg his second year.

maybe the reason his minutes didn’t increase was his crappy play as denoted by his .065 ws/48 his second season?

walsh came in and dumped him. did he have a hard-on for balkman, too?

how about karl… he gave him a look and didn’t see enough to give him rotation time with k-mart’s historically bad knees.

d’antoni won’t play him. no gm will trade for him. surely he could be had from the knicks for a bucket of warm spit, but no one wants him.

everybody’s a moron, i guess.

just out of curiosity, what does he bring to the table when he is on the floor? is he a lock down defender at any position? does he facilitate the offense with passing skills? can he score? what plus skill of any sort does he bring to the table that makes him such a fine player that no coach or gm can see?

i mean he’s got a kool do and eyes that look like mine did when i was smoking nepalese temple balls 40 years ago, but other than
that, what’s the attraction?

Let’s see, he led NBA rookies in blocks + steals his rookie year.. has good rates since… he’s been among top NBA SFs in rebound rate each year (1st his rookie year)… he is a pretty good ballhandler with a low turnover rate.. finishes well, etc. (all skills more valuable in a running team. vs. half-court but that’s another story). Brian is right that his banishment in NY says more about D’ANtoni than it does about Balkman.

I do think he’s had some off-court & personality issues that cause conflict with coaches..

There are a million reasons, some maybe good, why he hasn’t stuck, but he’s played well when he’s been on the court, and a team that sucks as much as this one can’t be picky because a player has faults.

Can you imagine what D’Antoni would have done with a young Dennis Rodman? Bench city. But yeah, the proof is in the pudding – Balkman plays well whenever he plays, but he never plays. It doesn’t make any sense. It’s like when Nate was benched for sixteen games for making a dumb mistake. Then he returns and plays the exact same way he did before he was benched. If a player is a net positive, like Nate was and Balkman is, you play them even if they do dumb stuff on occasion. But D’Antoni and Karl are two of the most stubborn coaches in the game, so we’ll never see it. As you note, D’Antoni shipped Balkman off after a single summer game! So obviously he was not going to give him a fair chance when he got him again. D’Antoni is not exactly a huge fan of giving players a fair chance if he’s made up his mind about them.

Caleb: This is a lazy comment – he didn’t fall out of favor with Thomas, he played more as the year went on (and very well).

this is a complete falsehood. i’m not implying it is done purposefully, but rather it is a manifestation of the stat fanboi balkman-o-phile’s selective memories.

he didn’t “play more as the year went on” coached by his drafting gm he played 15.6 mpg his first year and 14.6 mpg his second year.

maybe the reason his minutes didn’t increase was his crappy play as denoted by his .065 ws/48 his second season?

walsh came in and dumped him. did he have a hard-on for balkman, too?

how about karl… he gave him a look and didn’t see enough to give him rotation time with k-mart’s historically bad knees.

d’antoni won’t play him. no gm will trade for him. surely he could be had from the knicks for a bucket of warm spit, but no one wants him.

everybody’s a moron, i guess.

just out of curiosity, what does he bring to the table when he is on the floor? is he a lock down defender at any position? does he facilitate the offense with passing skills? can he score? what plus skill of any sort does he bring to the table that makes him such a fine player that no coach or gm can see?

i mean he’s got a kool do and eyes that look like mine did when i was smoking nepalese temple balls 40 years ago, but other than
that, what’s the attraction?

bobneptune: i find this infatuation with balkman interesting to say the least.

balkman was drafted by thomas, who had a vested interest in seeing him do well and giving him a fair chance. thomas gave him some pt and quickly balkman fell out of favor with the coach/gm that drafted him.

walsh (known universally as a fair man) couldn’t wait to dump balkman to denver as soon as he was hired. clearly his opinion of balkman was poor.

george karl gets balkman and gives him some minutes his first year and quickly sours on him.

he gets added into the melo deal as a salary dump and d’antoni refuses to play him last year and this year.

there are 29 other gm’s in the league and none of them are beating down the doors of the knicks to get this “hidden statistical gem” on their rosters.

ever stop to think maybe that is because he sucks at basketball no matter what his ws/48 says?

This is a lazy comment – he didn’t fall out of favor with Thomas, he played more as the year went on (and very well). Denver is harder to judge because they had a glut of pretty good forwards (Carmelo, Kenyon Martin, Harrington, Afflalo, Linas Kleiza the first year), and D’Antoni obviously has always disliked Balkman or his game; he played exactly half of a summer league game before he got shipped out.

There are a million reasons, some maybe good, why he hasn’t stuck, but he’s played well when he’s been on the court, and a team that sucks as much as this one can’t be picky because a player has faults.

By playing well, I mean pretty good defense, great rebounding for his position, solid ballhandler, can’t shoot but knows it so he doesnt jack up bad shots, and is a good finisher. All together it more than makes up for the bonehead fouls and a brain farts you’re going to get, too. As John Thompson said, you can calm down a wild man but you can’t resurrect a corpse…