In Eddie Curry, the Knicks have one of the legitimate, premier young post-up centers in the NBA. The perfect tandem to Curry is to have a point guard who can penetrate to the basket to draw defenses, and dish off to Curry for easy baskets -- and there is no better point guard in the NBA at penetrating through half court defenses like a knife through butter like Stephon Marbury. If Marbury can't score on his own drive or dish off to Curry on the low block, then there's Channing Frye waiting in the paint -- the perfect scoring power forward, getting most of his points facing the basket and dead eye from 10--20 feet. The final pieces to this offensive puzzle is to have some players who can shoot lights-out from three-point range, so that if a team clogs the middle to defend Marbury-Curry-Frye, you beat them from the outside. There Isiah hasn't been as exacting, bringing in Jamaal Crawford and three-point-record-holder Quentin Richardson -- both streaky shooters. 

On the defensive side, Isiah's players are weak. Jamaal Crawford, Stephon Marbury, Quentin Richardson, and Eddie Curry have reputations as bad defensive players. To solidify the defense, Isiah -- arguably because Knick upper management twisted his arm to do so -- brought in a coach highly regarded for coaching teams that play great team defense -- Larry Brown. 

Not Stephon Marbury's Fault

Stephon Marbury was having a terrific year when he was brought down in a mid January game that killed the Knick season. The Knicks had just reeled off six wins in a row before a loss to Toronto, when Marbury was injured in a game at the Garden against Minnesota. Despite being yanked around by Brown, and crapped on in the press by Brown, Marbury was scoring, passing, and leading the team, and beyond all else, was fun to watch. This disaster of a Knick season was not Stephon Marbury's fault. He is not X. 

So then Why Do the Knicks Suck? 

1) The number one reason why the Knicks suck -- is in two words, Larry Brown. Larry Brown = X. Forget the 'track record'; Larry Brown took a team that should have won 40-45 games this year and won 22. The defense was atrocious, and the team absolutely stopped playing for him the final third of the season. 

Brown's past coaching technique has been to spend the first 6 to 9 months discombobulating whatever team he coaches, playing different starting lineups every night in an effort to emasculate all the egos on the team and make every player his puppet, hanging on his string, knowing that if they lapse just a little bit on the court, they won't play the next night. If any player grumbles about playing time, Larry Brown goes after them in the press, calling them names or disparaging their talent level. If the player fights back, he's soon traded. If he doesn't fight back, Brown has won the will of egos, and the player is put back in the playing rotation. 

In two short years, Isiah Thomas has turned the Knick roster over -- from old, unathletic, injured, overpriced geyser lineup, to young, athletic, high-scoring players. The Knicks two years ago featured:

C: Dikembe Mutombo. Old (38?)and immobile and couldn't score.

PF: Kurt Thomas and Antonio McDyess (with Othella Harrington, Clarence Weatherspoon, and Michael Sweetney in reserve). Kurt Thomas was the only player on the team that anybody else wanted. Sweetney had talent but wasn't playing at all. Weatherspoon was the only power forward in NBA history who had to quadruple fake to put his shot up, and would still get it slammed down his throat.

SF: Keith Van Horn. Unatheletic and piss-poor defensively. Van Horn was a scorer who would disappear late in games when other teams put defensive stoppers on him.

SG: Alan Houston. His career was over, although we weren't sure at the time. Piss poor defensively even in his prime, before the knee operations.

PG: Charlie Ward and Frank Williams. 

In comparison, the Knicks 2006 roster contained the following players:

C: Eddie Curry (with Jerome James in reserve). Curry is 23 and one of the best young post-up centers in the NBA. Deficiencies are his inability to rebound nor block shots or clog the middle defensively.

PF: Channing Frye, Antonio Davis (with Malik Rose in reserve). Channing Frye is 23, has dead-eye accuracy from 10-20 feet, moves well without the ball, and has the kind of court sense reminiscent of Tim Duncan. He's 6'11". 

SG: Jamaal Crawford (with Quentin Richardson in reserve). Only 25 years old, Crawford can score and score and this year, he's scoring within the confines of the team offense, which is the best news for the Knicks. Richardson is also only 25.

PG: Stephon Marbury. You can piss on Marbury all you want, but he remains one of the premier point guards in the NBA. One of the few players in the game who can penetrate defenses and get to the basket like a knife through butter. Doesn't 'see the court' while running a full-court offense like Steve Nash or Jason Kidd, but I'd still rather have Marbury in a slow-down half-court offense of the playoffs. Hey, remember, Nash was one-and-done in last year's playoffs.