Lets take the 94 Knicks who lost to the Rox in the 94 Finals. Ewing Oakley Smith Starks Harper Mason G.Anthony H.Davis How good would you say that team really was? Could they compete agains the cream of the crop of the NBA today and of the past 5-6 years -- the Lakers, Kings, Spurs etc....? What do you guys think? How would Ewing do against todays Shaq and how would the Knicks type of D and ball do against the Lakers, Kings, Spurs etc.... ?
The MJ-less Bulls took them to 7 games and needed an atrocious game-altering call to do it. I highly doubt they would have beaten any of the champions dating back to 1980. Too offensively challenged, too unpredictable (prone to bench-clearing brawls over the smallest incidents), too slow.
They were good but very inconsistent on offense. They struggled to find a consistent playmaker from the perimeter. If the possession fell out of the set offense, they were pretty screwed. Great defensive team & actually an underrated jump shooting team. If you watch games of that era on ESPN Classic you'll see that even the most marginal of players had decent jumpshots. Unlike today's NBA.
Old school Knicks? I thought you were talking about the Willis Reed, Walt Frazier, Earl the Pearl, Bill Bradley, Dave DeBusscher (sp?), Cassie Russell championship teams.
Now the real old school Knicks of the early seventies with DeBusshere, Earl the Pearl, Bill Bradley, Willis Reed, Phil Jackson and of course the coolest player of all time, Clyde Frazier, were a real team. In fact I think they are probably among the top three greatest teams of all time, up there with the Bill Russell-led Celtics and the Lakers team with Wilt, the Logo and Elgin Baylor. Now the 1994 Knicks were not what I'd call a great team, but their blue-collar, defensive approach won them a ton of games. I never to this day will understand why Riles didn't pull Starks for Ronaldo Blackman, one of the best jumpshooting guards ever.
were they champs in '70 and then '72? I will check on that. Willis Reed limps into the Garden for Game 7 and wins it, that was classic. I love that the Knicks team of the 90's got beat in the Finals by two Texas teams. Now the '99 team with Sprewell, they were a storybook season. the only 8th seed to make it to the NBA finals, but they were weak without Ewing, they got chumped by the Spurs
They certainly gave Michael Jordan, etc. a lot of headaches after the comeback. I think you still have to put them among the premier teams of the early 90's, but not among the all-time teams.
Teams of the 90's really don't have much on todays teams, at least talent wise. In the 90's, there was MJ and to a lesser extent Clyde. Today, there's Kobe, T-Mac, A.I., and Lebron; all players who could give MJ or Clyde a run for their money. The few teams that can match up to todays, would have to be some of the earlier teams. There were fewer teams, so the talent level on each team was much higher than you would see today.
I thought the same thing. And those knick teams of the late 60s and early 70s were very good. All those guys could shoot lights out. DB
I completely disagree with this, teams of the 90s, for the most part, are better then teams of today. Teams of the 90s were deeper, more talented and had better team chemistry then today's teams. Barkley's Suns could give any of the teams of today a run for their money, including the Lakers. The Lakers would have had nightmares getting out of a West conference that including Barkley's Suns, Dream's Rockets, a Jazz team that slaughtered the Lakers when the Jazz were in their prime, teams like that. Then, once they got to the Finals, it wouldn't have been a cake walk. Those Knicks teams would have physically pushed the Lakers around, Ewing in his prime was more then a match for Shaq. Not saying he would have outplayed Shaq but he would have neutralized him. The Lakers would have had a nightmare trying to score points, a 2-man show against those Knicks teams would have got you pounded. The Bulls team with Michael Jordan were a superior version of the Kings of today. And if the Kings of today whipped up on the Lakers before falling to them last year when would Jordan's Bulls do? Even with Payton and Malone, there are things that would give the Lakers trouble, like a lack of a bench for the Lakers, and perimeter shooting. There are a few teams of today that could have hung in the 90s, and maybe won it all, the Lakers obviously, San Antonio, the Kings, who are this era's version of the old Barkley Suns, and maybe the Mavs because the 90s were full of run and gunning teams. Meanwhile some of the lesser teams of the 90s could be a threat nowadays, Zo and LJ's Hornets could win the East, as could Shaq's Magic. Jazz, Suns and Rockets definitely, Bulls, Knicks and Zeke's Pistons. Drexler's Blazers could win the NBA title. I think the 90's had better teams then now.
What? The 1993 Lakers came within a hair of dumping Phoenix out of the playoffs in the first round. The Knicks of the 90s would be fodder for today's Sac, SA, and LA. The -only- way they made the Finals in 1994 was thanks to MJ deciding to play baseball. ESPN Classic showed the game Kukoc won at the buzzer a few days ago. The Knicks were so stupid that they let a fight between Jo Jo White and Harper end up in a bench clearing brawl and suspensions in a critical series. They did the same thing in a couple of Miami Heat series a few years later. They were a bunch of offensively limited thugs with the exception of Ewing.
the 90s knicks had about as mutch of a chance of winning today as n.j. nets had of beating s.a. witch is not mutch but there is always a chance for an upset. i believe there tenacity gave them an opportunity to give almost any team a run for there money but the results would still be the same.
the 90's knicks came within a Charles Smith series of missed layups of knocking off the Hallowed Bulls in the prime of Michael Jordan's career. They were a very good team, and regularly won 60 when the league was less watered down and the East wasn't as bad. They would lose to the top teams today but they would grab, fight, elbow, and mug their way to very close losses.
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Even though the post was ridiculous in listing LeBron, I think today's league is a more talented than the league the Bulls dominated. Duncan Garnett Shaq Kobe T-Mack Dirk Marbury Francis Webber Iverson Kidd Pierce B Davis J O'neal Ray Allen Elton Brand vs. Jordan Olajuwon Barkley Drexler Kemp Payton Miller Shaq (younger version) Penny Mutumbo Mourning Stockton The 90's list is top heavy. I wouldn't include Zeke in the 90's, I associate him with the 80's. I guess its more of a toss up.
Elton Brand? Baron Davis? Pretty shaky. Is Elton Brand that much better than Otis Thorpe or a young Kevin Willis even? The present list has quantity, but the 90's list (I think you acidentally(?) omitted David Robinson, Karl Malone, and Ewing, and Pippen, btw. Mutombo is fine but not really ever complete enough to be great) has far, far more quality and evens out quantity wise when you include the omissions. Could Anybody in ANY decade beat this starting 5? Stockton Jordan Pippen or Drexler Malone Olajuwon