But I have high hopes for him — I really think he is motivated to become a bona fide star. I can’t possibly put myself in his very large shoes, but I imagine that after playing for Skiles for 2 years and then Larry Brown who couldn’t stand him either, he needed someone like Isiah who will stick by him through the good and bad to grow as a player– I wouldn’t be surprised if he came back with a 10-12 foot jumper this year and had 2 assists per game. I think that’s about all you can ask of him.

Re: Artest — as you can tell from my previous posts I love the guy’s game — but I’d never trade one of our young assets (meaning Lee/Balkman) if he’s going to come back for the MLE next year anyway for nothing other than $$ and cap space. The Knicks aren’t winning any championships next year with or without him so why give up our prospects? I’d give ‘em Jefferies and Collins or Jefferies and Nate and say final offer.

As far as Curry goes, he can be lazy, but some people have to learn how to focus, and I htink Curry is young enough, motivated enough, and will be given the ball enough to learn what it takes to be a star in this league. If Curry improves his focus, he will be on the all-star team next year.

In 05-06 Curry put up his very efficient offensive numbers while not the primary focus of the offense and while not facing constant double teams.

In 06-07 Curry was able to play more minutes and maintain his high level of efficientcy while facing double and triple teams. If it was easy to simply play more and maintain efficientcy we would all be impressed by Sweetney’s all-star nomination.

On top of that going from a 1.9 assist rate to a 4.1 is a pretty signifigant increase and while his turnovers went up his turnovers per assist actually went down. If he can maintain this rate of improvment next year he will end up an okay passer.

Also Curry’s rebound rate most likely went down because he played alot more minutes next to Lee, and we were a good rebounding team for most of the season so I think we do a pretty good job of covering for this weakness.

I totally agree that Curry’s off ball defense is absolutely horrible but I think his positives out weigh this one very large negative. Also team defense is something that historically can be taught, while he will never be a shot blocker he might one day be at least passable on team defense.

The thing that Curry does do is change the game by just being on the court. There are not very many players in the league that have this kind of an effect on the game maybe 8-9 but probably not even that many. His presence makes the game easier for everyone else on the Knicks because of all the attention he demands.

Unfortunatly the Knicks do not have the optimal players to take advantage of this ability but it is nevertheless very real and very valuable.

Slightly off-topic but I am really starting to get worried about this whole Artest thing.

The newspapers and now ESPN won’t let this thing die. I am starting to think Isiah might actually include Balkman or even worse Lee.

At first getting Artest did not seem so bad but now I am starting to think I would not even want him for free. The risk is too high and his presense, even if he stays sane, might not even be much of an upgrade over Balkman because Artest is a chucker and freelances on offense as much as Crawford. Also looking at the stats Balkman was dominant defensively last year, I want to see if the numbers were real or a fluke.

But is this really true? If you look at Curry’s top 5-man units, there are plenty of guys that can hit a jump shot. In fact in the top 9 there are no lineups with more than one player who can’t hit a jumper (most common are Lee and Jeffries). So he’s not often paired with 2 guys that can’t shoot, and apparently rarely teamed with 2 of the 3 guys you mentioned above.

So that excuse really doesn’t fly from a statistical perspective. From what I’ve seen on the court that doesn’t seem to be true either. Curry gets double teamed more and more often, because it works. Even when he passes out of the double team it’s rarely to the open player. He usually pops it back out to the player that fed him. Curry doesn’t have few assist because he’s finding the open guy who misses an easy jumper. It’s that he’s not finding the open guy.

You can say this is a “Curry-bashing-heavy” blog (not forum), but in all honesty (speaking for myself) I’m more interested in the truth than having an agenda. So I’ll ask, am I bashing Curry by pointing out that his passing woes aren’t from playing with guys that can’t hit jump shots?

And where was all this discussion during Curry’s report card?

All these points have been discussed at length on this board before, but I thought I’d check em out again to make sure we haven’t been unfair (We haven’t really been).

The main thing, as has been said a million times, is that Curry is incredibly one dimensional. He’s so good at scoring in the low post (although his TOs offset it to some extent) and so incredibly bad at basically everything else. He’s one of the worst centers, and in some cases players, in the league at rebounding, shotblocking, passing, TOs, and defense.

While he gets bashed a lot for passing like Yinka Dare and turning it over so damn much, Amare is actually almost as bad a passer and turns it over only slightly less than Curry. Of course, Amare is also a far better rebounder and defender than Curry:
Curry= 12.2 career rebound rate 11.9 last year, Amare= 15 career and 17 last year. defensively the 25th ranked Knicks–who replaced Curry with guys like Frye, JJ, and Malik–were 5.3 points per 100 possessions worse with Curry on the court while the 13th ranked Suns–I would guess defensive stalwart Kurt Thomas was his primary replacement– were 3.8 pp100 worse with Amare out there.

A big difference between Amare and Curry in my eyes is that Amare is the primary of several options for Steve Nash and the Suns’ other playmakers like Leandrinho and Diaw, while the Knicks run their offense through Curry. Amare gets open and converts high percentage shots quickly w/in a fluid offense, while Curry goes one on one (or 2 or 3) while the other Knicks stand around: the result is that if Curry doesn’t convert his high % shot and instead chucks it out to someone on the perimeter the Knicks are in bad shape and have to rely on JC “creating his own shot.”
Curry’s role reminds me a lot of a limited versions of Ewing’s role in the early and mid 90s. The Knicks were an equally mediocre offensive team at that time–maybe because Ewing was not nearly as efficient as Curry and wasn?t surrounded by the dynamic scorers Curry is–and Ewing wasn’t a great passer either–although he was twice as good as Curry and turned is over far, far less. The big differences were that those Knicks had the NBA’s #1 defense, and Ewing was surrounded by very good passers at every position (Oakley was the worst passer in the top 7 besides Ewing and his assist rate was still 16.7, in last year’s top 7 only Marbury (23.7) and Crawford (18.2) topped 16.7).

Your point about potential and development is not particularly well received. He only played under Skiles for about 1 3/4 seasons. If you look at per minute or rate stats Curry has shown very little improvement. He has not improved his passing or rebounding in 6 seasons (his rebounding was up under Larry Brown actually, but that year his passing was Yinka Dare level), so while maybe these things can be taught Curry hasn’t learned them.
JO’s numbers his second year in Indy aren’t much different than his first, or his third (this will be Curry’s 3rd year in NY). His true shooting % and TO rate did improve every year, although the TO rate was far better than Curry’s to start with. His rebound rate actually declined from year 1 to 2 and 2 to 3.

Curry (’05-’06 / ’06-’07)
TO rate 17.7 / 17.7
TO/40 3.8 / 4.1
Assist rate 1.9 / 4.1
eFG% .563 / .576
TS% .604 / .603
FT% .632 / .615
reb rate 14.1 / 11.9
BLK/40 1.2 / 0.6
STL/40 0.6 / 0.5
Fouls/40 5.1 / 3.7
PT/40 21 / 22.1

And regarding Curry — this really is a Curry-bashing-heavy forum. I still have high hopes for the guy. In year 1 of being given the mantle of “franchise guy” by a coach that doesn’t hate him (ie. Isiah vs. Skiles), I thought he improved quite a bit over the season. Again, I’m not a super-stat guy but just watching the games I got the distinct feeling that he was understanding the offense better, passing out of doubles better, and even occasionally grabbing a rebound. I think it’s tough to judge his progress because no one will do well and everyone will turn the ball over a bunch and have no assists if you’re double/triple-teamed on every possession and anyone you throw the ball out to bricks a wide-open 15 foot jumpshot (read: Mardy Collins, Jefferies, Balkman).

And regarding his weaknesses — passing, rebounding, help defense (amongst others, I know)– a lot of this can be taught. But being unstoppable in the post and commanding double-teams on most possessions is not that easily taught. Now if 2 years from now he’s still the same player… I’ll join all you Curry-haters out there. But give the guy a break — he was stuck on a team with a coach that couldn’t stand him, which likely stunted his growth badly over those years. Look at a guy like Jermaine O’Neal – it took until his 7th year and 2nd team that his potential actually came out. And this will be Eddy’s 7th year and second team.

OK, bring the flamethrowers and their PERs out now…

Wonder what would have happened if we drafted Artest over Fred Weiss to begin with…

Artest is a smart guy, he’s just a lunatic. given an idiot or a lunatic, I think in this case, I’ll go with the latter. Jamal and Morris for Artest…