After several months and a bunch of key offseason changes, the curtain is about to finally be unveiled a few blocks from Broadway on the new-look New York Knicks, as they open their 2014-15 season at Madison Square Garden, against the Chicago Bulls, on Wednesday night.
For many Knicks fans, that means hope, optimism and the belief that at least in late October, anything is possible.
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And why not, when they see the Kansas City Royals currently playing in the World Series? After all, the Royals were the same 50-1
to win that series
to win the NBA title in 2015.
If all goes well, Carmelo Anthony will be more selfless and trusting, and will be rewarded for that, as his teammates help him out by hitting their own shots at an efficient rate. Rookie Cleanthony Early will be solid enough give Anthony more of a break than last year, when New York’s superstar logged too many minutes. J.R. Smith will manage to stay focused and return to his Sixth Man of the Year form of two years ago. Jose Calderon will get everyone clicking on offense far better than Raymond Felton tried to last year, as his former Dallas teammate Shane Larkin provides a spark. Tim Hardaway, Jr. will continue to make positive strides in his second year. An obviously happier and more aggressive Iman Shumpert will be a considerable factor and Andrea Bargnani and Amar’e Stoudemire will remain healthy and productive, while being assisted up front by newcomers Samuel Dalembert, Jason Smith and Quincy Acy, and holdover Cole Aldrich.
And head coach Derek Fisher will be as strong and influential leader from the bench as he was during his 18 years as an NBA point guard. His brand new coaching staff will also help the Knicks buy in a lot more than the previous one under departed head coach Mike Woodson.
That’s if everything falls perfectly into place.
Of course, there’s the other end of the spectrum, which fails to predict such harmony, as detailed within the past week by famous basketball lifers Jeff Van Gundy, Mark Jackson and Shaquille O’Neal, and most of all, by the same type of computer prediction which accurately foretold some unexpected Knick failures last season.
Many Knicks fans that were frustrated by Woodson’s isolation heavy offense and switching issues on defense, are buoyed by thought of Fisher running Phil Jackson’s triangle offense while hoping that the new voices of Fisher and his staff will help improve the team at the other end of the floor.
Van Gundy, however, believes it’s players — not a system — that win games, even if he thinks New York will make the playoffs next spring (as reported by New York Post beat writer Marc Berman).
"While Van Gundy (an assistant for seven years and head coach for five more with the Knicks) calls the triangle offense “a good thing,” he also claimed that if the Knicks are to bounce back with a good season after missing the playoffs last year, “It’s not going to be because of a system,” while adding, “Systems don’t win games, players do.”"
According to Van Gundy, it wasn’t Jackson’s triangle offense, so much as his good fortune of being able to coach top-level stars like Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, Kobe Bryant and O’Neal, which really turned Jackson into the league’s all-time leader with 11 NBA titles as a head coach.
"Van Gundy’s ESPN broadcast partner Mark Jackson (who once starred for the Knicks as a point guard and later coached the Golden State Warriors) concurred, saying, “In this league, you win with players. Phil had tremendous success with the triangle offense in his coaching career, with incredible basketball players, all-time great basketball players.”"
As Jackson noted other teams’ inability to win while running the triangle, Van Gundy implied that Jackson’s Bulls or Los Angeles Lakers would have still won championships while running another system.
Since the Knicks seem to currently be lacking championship-caliber talent (until rookie team president Jackson can possibly improve their roster with available cap space after next season), the message from Van Gundy and Jackson appears to be: don’t expect great things in 2014-15 simply because the coaching staff had been completely overhauled and they’ll be running an entirely new system that has won in the past with far superior players on other teams.
One former player who would know that as well as anyone is O’Neal, a four-time champion, three-time NBA Finals Most Valuable Player under Jackson, and one of the game’s greatest big men ever.
For the Knicks to truly contend, O’Neal stated the obvious, telling New York Post writer Justin Terranova that New York would need at least one more star to complement Anthony.
"“If Carmelo is trying to seal his legacy, [the Knicks will] need one more guy,” O’Neal, now a TNT analyst, said.Coming from the perspective of having starred in the triangle offense, O’Neal said, “From my experience with Phil, you need two [stars] and definitely one that demands a double-team.”"
Right now, Anthony is the only player on New York’s roster who fits that description.
If analyst opinions like that of Van Gundy, Jackson and O’Neal didn’t offer enough pessimism, throwing further cold water on the ability of Knicks Nation to have dreams like that of Royals fans was a depressing computer prognostication for New York’s upcoming season, released on Monday.
Well-known in the predicting game in sports and other arenas, FiveThirtyEight.com pegs the Knicks as going just 31-51 — six games worse than last year — while finishing 13th in the Eastern Conference, ahead of only the hapless Milwaukee Bucks and Philadelphia 76ers, with absolutely no chance (0.0 percent) of winning an NBA title.
Certainly, such projections can be very wrong. But recall last offseason, when New York was coming off a year in which it won 54 games and earned its first division title in 19 years. Back then, the consensus was that ESPN’S SCHONE system was vastly understating the Knicks’ potential in predicting 37 New York wins. Yet when last season was done, that’s exactly how many victories the Knicks had.
New York fans can only hope the law of averages balances out, and that FiveThirtyEight’s forecast is as wrong as SCHOENE’s was accurate.
Or at least that if Van Gundy, Jackson and O’Neal are presumably correct in saying that better talent over a new system will ultimately help the Knicks the most, that Van Gundy is partially right in thinking New York will reach the postseason. At that point, in what should be a wide open Eastern Conference, Knicks fans can go from there.
Until then, however, they shouldn’t expect the triangle or new defensive schemes alone to trigger a significant turnaround.