Rockin’ Steady

Mark my words, if you think the answer to the Knicks’ woes is to avoid playing Zach Randolph and Eddy Curry together, you are mistaken.

This, with all due respect to Howard Beck of the New York Times, is horsecrap. When the Knicks have been at their best this year–think Utah, think Denver–it’s been because Randolph and Curry have been operating effectively simultaneously. The problem is that when Curry has retreated into his mental hole–and it’s only been Curry–the Knicks haven’t found ways to keep him involved, either within the offensive gameplan (such as it is) or within the confines of Curry’s own mind. To the extent that the duo has failed, it’s been because one of them has sort of sucked. It does not follow logically or factually that it’s Zach Randolph’s fault.

Observe. From the article:

A statistical analysis provided by 82games.com helped illustrate the problem — and pointed to Curry as the main culprit. Over the first 23 games of the season, the Knicks were, on average, outscored by 7.9 points (per 48 minutes) when Curry and Randolph shared the court. When Randolph played without Curry, the Knicks were outscored by only 2.3 points per 48 minutes.

Most striking is that Curry, the Knicks’ leading scorer last season, is a greater drag on the team. The Knicks are outscored by 16 points per 48 minutes when Curry plays without Randolph.

Read that again, and carefully. This essentially confirms everything I just said.

David Lee, who IS the other big man when Randolph sits, and whom I generally love, cannot play defense. Read that statement again, then watch him and him alone for a couple quarters. Hustles like a maven, but cannot guard anyone. Period. Playing him more will not solve the Knicks’ major problem. (Playing Balkman will, but of course no one’s complaining about that).

More foolishness:

It also seems clear that Randolph’s arrival has sent Curry into a funk. He is averaging 14.2 points and 5.2 rebounds this season, after averaging a career-best 19.5 points and 7 rebounds last season. His field-goal attempts and free-throw attempts have decreased.

This, of course, wasn’t the case at all over the first month of the season, when Curry’s numbers were perfectly fine. But Curry has, again, disappeared all of a sudden. Why is that Zach Randoloph’s fault?

For the last damn time: They are different players. Randolph plays an entirely different game than Curry. Watch the games and figure it out. To the extent that the interior passing of Curry has been poor, it’s not because Randolph is there (and a lot of the team’s ball movement problems generally are attributable to the backcourt players).

A case can be made that Randolph’s arrival has, in fact, hurt several Knicks. Lee, playing four fewer minutes a game than last season, has had declines in scoring, rebounding and field-goal percentage. Quentin Richardson, who has also been benched lately, is averaging career lows in points a game (7.3) and field-goal percentage (.324). Jamal Crawford, a streak shooter, struggled for weeks until recently finding his rhythm.

This is idiotic. Of course when you get a 20-10 guy, he’s going to get more shots and others will get less. Considering that Crawford’s shot well under 40 percent for his Knick tenure, including about three ghastly shots per game prior to this season, I’m not sure this is a bad thing. Quentin Richardson is a poor fit on a non-running team to begin with. That David Lee cannot hit those shots he DOES get speaks volumes about the degree to which one can reasonably expect him to be the savior of the starting lineup.

Howard Beck: I like you, I do. But I don’t think any of the terrific beat writers to come before you at the Times (the divine Selena Roberts, Chris Broussard, Clifton Brown) would commit such a vacuous viewpoint of what afflicts this team to print.