http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/columns/story?columnist=hughes_frank&id=1852866 With all due respect to my esteemed colleague and compadre Chad Ford: What the heck is Isiah thinking? Erick Dampier would be another Knick who's been around but won nothing. Yes, Isiah Thomas has transformed the New York Knicks with a bigger shakeup than the top tiers of Martha Stewart Living OmniMedia. But have you ever seen one of those scenes in a movie where a little weasly white guy in a confrontational circumstance pulls out a bunch of flailing karate moves that are supposed to intimidate his tormentor but actually do nothing but expose him for a fraud and tire him out all at the same time? That would be Isiah Thomas revamping the New York Knicks. He's made a bunch of moves, yet he's standing there with little to show for it and he's plumb tuckered out -- for many many years to come. If, in fact, Isiah signs Erick Dampier to go with a sign-and-trade deal for Jamal Crawford that essentially eliminates any future flexibility he may have had, well, in my mind that is figuratively putting the cement shoes -- why has Nike not made a pair of those yet? -- on the Knicks and throwing them in the East River on a frigid January day. Yes, I agree, some of the Knicks' pieces certainly look good, to go with Stephon Marbury and Allan Houston. But now more than ever I am a big believer in chemistry, and when you really get right down to it, the collection of players Isiah has assembled has really accomplished very little in their respective careers, and they have had plenty of time to do it. Let's start at the top: Your first inclination is to say that Marbury still is a young player. But guess what? He's been in the league now for eight seasons. Ten. You know how many playoff games he has been in in that span? Eighteen. And he's never been out of the first round. You want further evidence? Guess who is one of the key players on the Olympic basketball team that is having so much difficulty beating the global competition? That's right, the self-proclaimed Starbury. Speaking of the Olympic team, I found it amusing that coach Larry Brown lamented that the team is struggling because it is very young. Guess what the combined salaries of the roster totals? Together they make $83.33 million, or an average of $7 million a player. I guess if they had thrown out their $137.23 million team, they'd be breezing. But if nothing else, the Olympic team is the perfect correlation for the Knicks, proof positive that you can't just throw a bunch of players on the court and expect them to win. Call me a doubting Thomas -- or just a really poor punster -- but I simply don't think that Isiah Thomas' idea of having Kurt Thomas and Tim Thomas together is going to work. Tim Thomas has been in the league nine years, playing a grand total of 33 playoff games. He's going to make $13 million this season for career averages of 12 points and four rebounds, something that prompted Ray Allen to call him out as a quantifiable underachiever, for which Tim Thomas threatened to beat up Allen, which to my knowledge has yet to occur, apparently another missed opportunity. Kurt Thomas, signed at sizable dollars through 2008-09, has 48 career playoff games in nine years with career postseason averages of 6.5 points and 5.8 rebounds. Since he left Orlando in 1999, Penny Hardaway has played in a grand total of 18 playoffs games. By comparison, his sophomore season in Orlando, he played in 21 postseason games. Nazr Mohammed is another guy you are tempted to say is young, but he has been in the league six seasons, during which he has played seven playoff games and has never advanced past the first round. He has career averages of 6.7 points and 5.3 rebounds. Since leaving the sheltered cocoon of Utah, Shandon Anderson has averaged seven points and three rebounds, for which he is going to make $7.4 million this season. His career has been in a downward spiral since the Rockets discovered he wasn't the player they thought he would be as soon as he stopped playing alongside Stockton and Malone. Allan Houston is the biggest conundrum because he clearly is talented. He also clearly is frustrating, going into long spells of quietude during a season and seemingly disappearing at important junctures. All of this averageness and mediocrity has me wondering why Isiah has become so enamored with the likes of Dampier and Crawford, two players who post halfway decent numbers only because they are on really, really bad teams. The only thing I can think of is Isiah needs to keep his string going of doing something, even if that something is detrimental. To wit, Dampier has been in the league eight seasons and has never been to the playoffs. His career record in Golden State was 172-370, and in many ways he reminds me of former Warriors center Joe Barry Carroll, better known as Joe Barely Cares, which should endear him to Garden fans rather quickly. (This does not even touch on the ludicrous idea that he opted out of a two-year contract that would have paid him $9 million a year and is going to give up at least $5 million this season because he thought he was worth more.) It would be one thing if Isiah had compiled a bunch of young players with a lot of potential who had the chance to grow together. But he has pieced together a litany of career losers, none of whom has the experience or wherewithal to lead the Knicks where every New Yorker demands they go. In his four seasons in Chicago, Crawford has compiled an astonishing 89-239 record while shooting 39 percent from the field, 34 percent from 3-point range. He has been so unimpressive that his hometown team, the Sonics, once enamored with him enough to discuss trading Gary Payton for him, now wouldn't touch him, in part because he plays zero defense and in part because he never seems to be playing within the system. It would be one thing if Isiah had compiled a bunch of young players with a lot of potential who had the chance to grow together. But he has pieced together a litany of career losers, none of whom has the experience or wherewithal to lead the Knicks where every New Yorker demands they go. Of the nine core players, they are averaging their ninth season in the league. That should be plenty of time to establish a career path, and in this case, sadly, they have. On top of that, what is the plan? Who is going to play where? Crawford griped for years about coming off the bench in Chicago; now ostensibly he will go to New York to come off the bench behind either Marbury or Houston. I can just see Crawford and Marbury arguing about which player will bring the ball up the court so they can get the team into its offense (read: which one of them gets to shoot.) Where do Tim Thomas and Anderson, who combined to make almost $20 million while averaging less than 20 points combined, fit in on a team that has enough scorers/shooters? If Vin Baker is re-signed -- and don't even get me started on the intelligence of that decision -- where does that put the development of Mike Sweetney. Is Allan Houston done, or still a prime-time player? All in all, it looks to me like New York fans had better get used to a lot of mediocre basketball that includes a lot of first-round exits from the playoffs for several years to come. That's all well and good for a team that previously was not in the playoffs at all, but that's not what I remember Isiah promising. J
Respone, from KnickerBlogger.net: Step 1. Conclusion - Step 2: Look At The Facts Bad writing is when an author writes an article with a biased conclusion before looking at any of the facts. The worst misuse of statistics is cherry picking ones that support your point, while ignoring any facts that reject your hypothesis. Enter ESPN.com columnist Frank Hughes, and his article "These moves aren't so smooth." Now I'm not such a Knick fan that I would let my fandom get in the way of an objective and intelligent argument. However luckily for me, Hughes' article was neither of these. Hughes sets the tone with the first line: "With all due respect to my esteemed colleague and compadre Chad Ford: What the heck is Isiah thinking?" The first time I read this I said to myself "Great!" I like to hear opposing opinions. Sometimes it's good to have a devil's advocate, because it keeps you in check. If you can't defend your ideas and theories, then maybe they aren't as valid as you think. Even better, sometimes you'll learn something that's contrary to your current beliefs, and change the way you think. Unfortunately the article had little chance of swaying any rational person. Read on: "If, in fact, Isiah signs Erick Dampier to go with a sign-and-trade deal for Jamal Crawford that essentially eliminates any future flexibility he may have had, well, in my mind that is figuratively putting the cement shoes -- why has Nike not made a pair of those yet? -- on the Knicks and throwing them in the East River on a frigid January day." Organized crime references to describe a New York sports team? Nothing says bad writing like a tired, drawn out metaphor. Memo to Mr. Hughes: the Knicks have been in salary cap hell for years now. Even without Crawford & Dampier's contracts, they will be over the cap until at least the summer of 2007. This is his only valid point in the entire article. Being over the cap gives you less flexibility than being under the cap. However being over the cap & being willing to take on more contracts doesn't make you inflexible. Consider this: if the Knicks are so inflexible, then how come they only have 3 players remaining from the pre-Isiah era? And Zeke hasn't been with the team for a whole year yet! That sounds pretty darn flexible to me. Looking at the Knicks roster, they still have some valuable trading chips. Sweetney is valuable for his contract as much as his promising ability. I'd imagine a few teams are interested in Kurt Thomas and Nazr Mohammed. If the Knicks don't trade them this year, next summer they have a ton of expiring contracts to deal in Penny Hardaway ($15.8M), Tim Thomas ($14M), Nazr Mohammed ($5.5M), and Moochie Norris ($4.2M with a team option - an option that no sane team would be dumb enough to activate). That's almost an entire salary cap in expiring contracts, enough to make any money strapped GM start drooling. The year after, they have about $35M in expiring contracts in Allan Houston, Shandon Anderson, & Jerome Williams (team option). So what is Hughes "proof" of Isiah's poorly thought out plan: "Yes, I agree, some of the Knicks' pieces certainly look good, to go with Stephon Marbury and Allan Houston. But now more than ever I am a big believer in chemistry, and when you really get right down to it, the collection of players Isiah has assembled has really accomplished very little in their respective careers, and they have had plenty of time to do it." Did you catch that? Chemistry = career accomplishments. What type of chemistry I'm not exactly sure about. Is it locker room chemistry? On the court chemistry? Molecular chemistry? He just doesn't specify the type. Of course what does he use to measure career accomplishments? Number of playoff games played. That's right it's the old ring argument (Player A is better than Player B, because he's won more championships). This kind of thinking is just not well thought out, because winning a playoff game or championship is a team effort, not an individual one. Last year, the following players didn't play in the playoffs: Vince Carter, Tracey McGrady, Zydrunas Ilgauskas, Gilbert Arenas, LeBron James, Carlos Boozer, and Allen Iverson. I didn't even bother to include any players from the West. Players that did have playoff experience were such superstars as: Dana Barros, Vin Baker, DerMarr Johnson, Shammond Williams, Daniel Santiago, and Wang ZhiZhi. I don't know about you, but if I were making a team, I'd overlook playoff experience, and go with the first group. Let's see he continues with this line of thought, and if you think I'm paraphrasing to make my point, read the article & be the judge for yourself. (Bolding is not in the original article, but added by me.) "[Marbury]'s been in the league now for eight seasons. Ten. [Editor's note: I don't know why this sentence "Ten." is there or what it means, but I left it in so you get the exact feel of the article.] You know how many playoff games he has been in in that span? Eighteen. And he's never been out of the first round... "Tim Thomas has been in the league nine years, playing a grand total of 33 playoff games... "Kurt Thomas, signed at sizable dollars through 2008-09, has 48 career playoff games in nine years with career postseason averages of 6.5 points and 5.8 rebounds... "Since he left Orlando in 1999, Penny Hardaway has played in a grand total of 18 playoffs games. By comparison, his sophomore season in Orlando, he played in 21 postseason games... "Nazr Mohammed ... has played seven playoff games and has never advanced past the first round. He has career averages of 6.7 points and 5.3 rebounds... "Allan Houston is the biggest conundrum because he clearly is talented. He also clearly is frustrating, going into long spells of quietude during a season and seemingly disappearing at important junctures... What's interesting is how he changes the facts he uses from one person to the next when the stats don't support his point of view. To bash Tim Thomas & Marbury, he shows how few playoff games they've played. However, unfortunately for Frank, counting playoff appearances doesn't necessarily work with his third choice: Kurt Thomas. Kurt's seen enough playoff action with the Knicks, including going to the Finals in '99. So he drags up Kurt's poor playoff statistics. Of course he doesn't mention that those numbers are heavily weighted when Kurt was a backup (only 22 minutes per game, not the 31+ we've been accustom to over the last 3 years.) In his playoff experiences as a starter, Kurt's averaged 13.6PPG & 11.4REB, which is conveniently ignored. Also ignored are Marbury's playoff numbers: 19.4PPG, 6.7AST, and 1.6STL. For Penny Hardaway, not only does he eliminate his early playoff success with the Magic, but uses it against him. In essence splitting Penny's career in two. What gives him the right to do that? Did Penny's "chemistry" change after he left Orlando? BTW since Hughes doesn't mention it, Penny's career playoff numbers since he left Orlando - 19 games (not the 18 he falsely reported), 17.1PPG, 5.4AST, and 1.7 STL. For each of the first five guys, he's mentioned the number of playoff games they've played in over their career and when it suits him, their playoff statistics. But eventually he has to mention Allan Houston. H20 has played in 63 playoff games, averaging 40 minutes, 19.3 PPG, and a 48.7% eFG%. If Hughes wants to be an impartial and forthcoming writer he can mention these numbers, and say that Houston is the only player on the Knicks with playoff experience. Surely admitting that the Knicks have one playoff tested starter won't blow his whole argument out of the water. So does Frank take the high road? "Allan Houston is the biggest conundrum because he clearly is talented. He also clearly is frustrating, going into long spells of quietude during a season and seemingly disappearing at important junctures." I have to give Frank some credit, if you're going to write bull****, you might as well use big words like conundrum, quietude, and junctures. I won't even bother to go over the rest of the article. It's more of the same - choose a player & pick only the numbers that make your claim look good. The flaws are obvious in this piece, beginning to end. If Hughes want to criticize Isiah's moves, then there are many logical arguments that would make sense. This is a lesson to all aspiring writers out there. If you are having trouble writing an article because the facts don't support your point, then maybe your initial hypothesis was wrong in the first place.
I think that Isaiah is giving the league a lesson in how not to build a team, and yet I think the media has been pretty kind to him. I mean, he's only been a disaster as a general manager, broadcaster, league comissioner and coach! The same columnists who bash Danny Ainge are crediting him with saving the Knicks, when all he has to show for relinquishing his young players and draft picks is a team of aging underachievers who are locked up for years to come. It's like he's building a fantasy team. BTW, why did he use over half of the MLE to sign Vin Baker? Any Knicks fan with some perspective?
I know it's been pretty popular to bash Isiah lately, but I don't think he's doing that bad a job. If you look at the Knicks situation when Isiah took over, it looked just terrible. The team was bad AND was way over the cap for the forseeable future. I mean, the Rockets with our Taylor/Moochie/Cato contracts look absolutely awesome compared to the deadweights NY carry. Since the Knicks had no chance of moving under the cap to build from the ground up, plus there's an incredible lack of talent, Thomas rebuilt the team the only way he can, through obtaining overpaid talented players for expiring contracts(and he will continue to have tons of them every year). Sure, it's something most teams don't have to do because no other team put themselves in such a huge hole. But you play the cards dealt to you. It's obvious that Thomas has mortaged the future. But this is a win-now league. I wouldn't be surprised if the owner forced his hand to win now, because having an overpaid team is better than having an overpaid team that absolutely sucks.
He's at least dead-on in calling out the Crawford deal as stupid. Thomas developed a crush on that kid at some point. I mean, when he didn't even get a second look by teams around the league as a RFA, why was this S&T deal such a priority? Especially when you already have Starbury on board? Granted, I'm 95% certain that Allan Houston is done and that Isiah knows it. But still, why not put the full-court press on the Dampier move instead? Centers aren't easy to get, and he's at least a legit one. Why move any possible trade bait for Crawford until you've done everything possible to get Dampier? Why even talk to Vin Baker's agent? If Mullin wasn't going to deal, Isiah should have been on the phone with Atlanta trying to work a S&T deal with them, just like Jerry West has been doing. Tim Thomas was a bad addition, bringing back Vin Baker would be dumb, making it clear to Kurt Thomas that you'll move him in a heartbeat is silly when he's been solid for years, Moochie doesn't even need ot be mentioned, etc. The Starbury trade was great, but every move since has seemed like Isiah went tinker-happy. Evan
