Marc and Jay talk about the last two games, all star weekend, what is going on with Hornacek, rotations, 10 minutes with a die hard fan, and much more
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A Look Back at Patrick Ewing’s Career
Written by: Jared Jerome
Twitter: @DailySportsStat
Last year as a Knick, Carmelo Anthony surpassed the 24,000 point mark becoming just the 25th NBA player to reach that milestone. He is a surefire Hall of Famer and one of the great scorers in NBA history. The accomplishment though, got me thinking about his tenure as a New York Knick. In his first three seasons in New York he led the Knicks to three brief playoff berths (one series win). After this modicum of success though, four straight seasons of missing the playoffs, one more disappointing than the next ensued. Last year specifically he had some decent talent around him. A burgeoning if at times enigmatic star in Kristaps Porzingis, a one dimensional, still athletic but flawed former MVP in Derrick Rose, and a mix of seemingly decent role players in Courtney Lee, Willy Hernangomez, and others. Nobody other than Rose himself would describe this as title contending talent, but to not even compete for the 8th seed in a perennially weak Eastern Conference? And its not like Melo, at age 33 couldnt play anymore. He was right at or around his career averages in just about all major statistical categories. But this is not to say I’m not a Carmelo Anthony fan. His deficiencies and weaknesses are well documented and often accurate, but again, he is still a first ballot Hall of Famer, like it or not. In fact, as puzzled as I was by another disastrous Knicks season, this milestone had me thinking less about Carmelo and more about a previous Knicks great, Patrick Ewing.
Patrick Ewing finished his career with 24,815 points and will likely be caught in career scoring by Anthony sometime before the All Star break. Both players are or will be Hall of Famers, are possibly top 50 all time players and were perennial All Stars (10 for Anthony, 11 for Ewing). Both are/were also much maligned. Probably the biggest trait that separates them however, especially as it pertains to their time in NY was that Patrick Ewing simply didn’t have losing seasons.
After coming into the league in 1985-86 and playing for bad teams in his first two seasons, he went on an incredible run of success. From 1987-88 through 2000-01 (his age 38 season) he made the playoffs 14 consecutive seasons, winning 17 playoff rounds, and reaching two NBA Finals. For a player to be the clear star of a team for that long with that consistency of success (despite not winning the ultimate prize) one or both of the following things would need to be true for him not to be considered an immortal player: His playoff runs must have been ended by poor teams, teams that his greatness alone should’ve been able to overcome, and/or he played with other great players, leaving him without excuse for playoff series losses, no matter his opponents. Lets delve into these questions a bit deeper.
The following is a list of the teams that ousted the Knicks from the playoffs during Ewing’s 14 year stretch:
1987-88 – The Larry Bird, McHale, Parish Celtics.
1988-89 – The young but still Michael Jordan/Scottie Pippen led Bulls
1989-90 – The Champion Bad Boy Pistons
1990-91 – Jordan and the Champion Bulls
1991-92 – Jordan and the Champion Bulls
1992-93 – Jordan and the Champion Bulls
1993-94 – Lost in Game 7 in the NBA Finals to the Rockets
1994-95 – Finger roll loss to the Pacers
1995-96 – Jordan and the Champion Bulls
1996-97 – Heat (more below)
1997-98 – Pacers
1998-99 – Lost (an old, breaking down Ewing was injured) in the Finals
to the Spurs.
1999-00 – Finals bound Pacers
2000-01 – Raptors
To review, they lost to the dynastic Jordan led Bulls fives times, four of which were during Bulls championship years. Nobody beat Jordan. That is well established. Ewing just joins a list of all time greats (Barkley, Malone, Stockton, Payton, and everyone else in the 90’s). In the year that Jordan decided to give baseball a try, the Knicks won the East and held a 3-2 lead in the Finals only to fall just short to Olajuwon and the Rockets in 7. In 96-97, the Knicks got some reinforcements and were a 57 win team gelling at just the right time. They swept their opening round series against the Hornets and were up 3-1 to a 61 win Heat team before PJ Brown body slammed Charlie Ward, most of the team including Ewing got suspended, and they lost in 7. The Bulls were up next. By the late 90’s, Ewing was no longer the best player on the team as he hit his late 30s but he still helped them to a second Finals appearance in 1998-99 but could not play in the Finals against the Tim Duncan/David Robinson led Spurs. In all, I don’t think the argument could be made that the Knicks lost to bad competition during Ewing’s playoff run. Maybe the one series where they underachieved was in 1994-95 where Game 7 against the Pacers ended on the infamous missed Ewing finger roll. It is worth noting though, that the Knicks were down 3-1 in that series and won Game 5 on a Ewing buzzer beater on the brink of elimination and then won game 6 handily in Indiana before losing the aforementioned Game 7.
Ok, so what about the talent surrounding Ewing during his illustrious but ultimately unfulfilling career? Lets have a closer look. To have that run of consistency and success, this guy must’ve been surrounded by stars and HOFers. The following are the awards/recognitions handed out to Ewing’s teammates from 1987-2001:
1987-88 Rookie of the Year – Mark Jackson.
1988-89 All Star – Mark Jackson
1993-94 All Star – John Starks
1993-94 All Star – Charles Oakley
1994-95 Sixth Man of the Year – Anthony Mason
1996-97 Sixth Man of the Year – John Starks
1999-00 All Star – Allan Houston
2000-01 All Star – Allan Houston
2000-01 All Star – Latrell Sprewell
In 14 playoff seasons Ewing played with 6 All Stars and 2 top bench players. Thats it! In 88-89 Mark Jackson was a second year player and the Knicks were not contenders. In 99-00, and 00-01, Sprewell and Houston were the stars of the team and Ewing was a third banana at the end of his career. The only other year with an All Star teammate was 93-94, the year they came within a John Starks 3-pointer from winning it all. During this era, Jordan had Pippen for all six of his titles (and of course he’s Jordan). Karl Malone (the second all time leading scorer in NBA history) and John Stockton (the NBA’s all time leader in assists and steals) played together every year of the run. Barkley played with Dr. J, Moses Malone, Hersey Hawkins, Kevin Johnson, Hakeem Olajuwon, Scottie Pippen, Clyde Drexler and more over his career and
never won a championship. David Robinson didn’t win until his twilight years when he got Tim Duncan. Shaq didn’t win until he got Kobe Bryant. Both top 15 all time players. Who was Ewing’s best teammate when he was at the top of his game from 85-97? John Starks? Charles Oakley? He never played with a first, second or third team all NBA player and won 17 playoff rounds. Frankly its remarkable. And when I think about this and compare it to the Carmelo Anthony led Knicks that failed to sniff 8th seed in a weakened East for four years, its hard to even comprehend how this warrior and consummate performer and winner was so under-appreciated. If Carmelo Anthony is a Hall of Famer, what does that make Patrick Ewing?
A STATISTICAL LOOK AT WHAT THE PAST HAS TO SAY ABOUT THE FUTURE’S ALL STARS
A STATISTICAL LOOK AT WHAT THE PAST HAS TO SAY ABOUT THE FUTURE’S ALL STARS
Written By: Torsten Maier (August 7, 2017)
Inevitably, a handful of tomorrow’s All-Stars will have been picked in the recent
2017 NBA Draft. In this article, we’ll discuss a few interesting statistics that will shine
some light on how many All Stars will come from this draft and where in the draft they
will have been picked from.
THE METHOD
It’s important to note that the analysis for this article was done for 49 first rounds
(1965 – 2013). 1965 was chosen based on access to historical data. 2013 was chosen
as the cut-off year because players drafted after this time have not had enough time to
accumulate at least one All Star appearance. The player list and pick information from
these drafts were cross referenced with a historical list of All-Stars to match each All
Star with their draft selection. Then, the percentage of players who became All Stars for each draft pick was calculated by dividing the number of All Stars selected with that
pick by the total number of players selected with that pick (49, one for each year).
THE RESULT
For those who read the last page of a book first, this is for you. The graph below is the final product of the analysis. The chart shows the percentage of draft selections for each pick with at least one All Star appearance. Now let’s look at what this graph can teach us.
GOOD NEWS FOR MARKELLE FULTZ Continue reading
Knicks @ Grizzlies – 2-19-14 – Game Recap
Written by William Lee
The New York Knicks fall short on a comeback from an 18 point first half deficit to the “Grit and Grind” Memphis Grizzlies, losing 98-93 in their first game back from the All Star break.
In the first half it looked like the New York Knicks were still in vacation mode, getting off to a slow start, just content on jacking up threes. Knicks were a goose egg in the first half on their nine three-point attempts, and shot a dismal 34.1% overall from the field. As great as Carmelo Anthony was in the All Star game, breaking the record for made threes in the mid-season classic exhibition game with eight made threes Sunday night. Anthony like the rest of the Knicks was still in vacation mode as well, missing his first seven attempts from the field. Anthony got semi on track again afterwards, going 8/15 the rest of the way finishing with 22 points on an ineffective 22 attempts.
On the other end New York made the Memphis Grizzles with the nickname “Grit and Grind” look like they were an offensive juggernaut scoring 50 points, shooting over 50% from the field. The Grizzles were unselfish, sharing the basketball, collecting 14 assist on 21 made field goals in the first half, in which they had every player scoring at least a point. This is the same Memphis team that is the fourth lowest scoring team in the league at 94.7 points per game.
The Knicks started the second half trailing 52-37, as bad as they had played in the first half, that was how well they played the second half. New York stormed out to a 14-4 run to start to the third quarter to get within one possession four minutes into the second half. New York amped up their defensive intensity, forcing Memphis to shot 35% from the field, even causing a 24 second violation. The rest of the quarter though the Grizzlies were able to keep the Knicks at arm’s length, as Anthony got it to a one possession game again at the end of the third quarter, knocking down a jump shot, making it 66-64.
The Knicks Prove Their Lack of Desire for the #1 Seed
- The lack of effort in this game by everyone not named Amare was disgusting.
- JR Smith final line, 0-8, 0 points, 4 turnovers, +/- of minus 16. Thanks for putting to rest the debate of whether you should have made the all-star team.
- Ed Malloy was the ref tonight, but he had no effect on the Knicks, this was all on them.
- Jrue Holiday had a career high. Knickeffect.
- Amare Stoudemire had 20 points on 8-13 shooting and some nice defensive plays. Too bad it was wasted on this shit show of a game.
- Philly starters outscored Knicks starters 89-40.
- This had better be a continuity issue that will resolve itself soon or else the Knicks have big problems as this is the healthiest they have been all year.
- What happened to the defense from the 1st month of the season? Wasn’t Shumpert coming back supposed to make the Knicks even more potent on defense?
- Ronnie Brewer looked great the 2.5 seconds he played tonight.
Episode 38: All Star Weekend
We talk about the events of the all star weekend, celebrity game, slam dunk contest, three point contest and the all-star game. We also complain about the newest developments with the Carmelo Anthony trade, wondering if it’s even worth it if we’re going to be giving up this much. We’re pretty down about the whole situation this episode, we promise to not be as miserable next episode. Download Episode 38
Episode 34: Problems on and off the court
The Knicks lose again and are getting close to falling to the 7th seed. The Knicks get fined 200,000 for conducting illegal practices. James Dolan on the list of worst New York sports owners of all time….twice. By the way, why hasn’t he extended Walsh yet? Love makes the all-star reserves, which he really really deserved. Gilbert Arenas is served during halftime. Jermaine O’Neal is out 6-8 weeks, which surprises no one. Download Episode 34
The New York Knicks Podcast 