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| Aldridge could have been a Knick if Isiah didn't exist. |
As we embark on the fifth post-Isiah year as Knicks fans, we've seen a bit of improvement, a bit more urgency, a bit more excitement and a bit more disappointment. We all would like to absolutely positively never think of Isiah Thomas ever again, but we here at Bar Down are going to bring your nightmare to the fore front once again. While we hope Glen Grunwald's collection of aging stars can get something done this year, let's look back on some what-if scenarios that could have happened if James Dolan didn't hire the worst GM of all-time.
There are two distinct deals that haunt Knicks fans during the Isiah years, overshadowing a slew of horrendous smaller moves such as signing Vin Baker and trading for Steve Francis when he already had Stephon Marbury (the same type of scoring point guard with an ego). The first is the acquisition of Marbury which built the foundation for the great D'Antoni years in Phoenix. The second is the Eddy Curry trade which ignited more jokes about the Knicks than a Dave Chapelle skit. The what-if scenarios that a result because of these trades are mind-boggling and if you're a big Knicks fan like me, you'll probably come close to puking.
Eddy Curry. Antonio Davis and a 2007 1st round draft pick (Wilson Chandler) to the New York Knicks for Jermaine Jackson, Mike Sweetney, Tim Thomas, a 2006 1st round draft pick (LaMarcus Aldridge), a 2007 1st round draft pick (Joakim Noah), a 2007 2nd round draft pick (Kyrylo Fesenko) and a 2009 2nd round draft pick (Jon Brockman).
I really don't need to go any further, hearing the names LaMarcus Aldridge and Joakim Noah are enough for me to have a panic attack. Imagine what the Knicks could have on their hands with a frontcourt of Joakim Noah and LaMarcus Aldridge? They easily would have the best frontcourt in the league. But imagine what those two could have done to help recruit a LeBron or a Wade or more recently a Deron Williams? A Lebron, Noah, Aldridge big three screams domination. High quality defense and balanced scoring, Lebron would be able to fully control the backcourt and not have to deal with another star guard taking touches away from him. Let's say you can't get Lebron cause he's soft and doesn't want to deal with the media in big, bad New York. Ok, so maybe you could ship Aldridge off to Denver for Carmelo without having to trade Gallinari or Wilson Chandler. Then you keep Chandler as a back up for Carmelo, turn around and ship Gallinari off to a team in need of a scorer and grab a mid-level point guard, such as Devin Harris or the underrated Jose Calderon. Either way Aldridge and Noah would have made the Knicks a playoff team easily, even with the under performing Stephon Marbury running the floor.
Instead the Knicks got Eddy Curry, the softest player in the history of the NBA. Rumor has it that he didn't like to dunk on people cause it would hurt their feelings. The guy wasn't mentally born for the NBA or sports in general, though would have been a great guy to have on Charmin commercials instead of that stupid bear. Oh, and Eddy Curry got a championship ring for sitting his fat self on the bench during the Heat Finals run.
Traded with Anfernee Hardaway and Cezary Trybanski to the New York Knicks for Howard Eisley, Maciej Lampe, Antonio McDyess, Charlie Ward, Milos Vujanic, a 2004 1st round draft pick (Kirk Snyder) and a 2010 1st round draft pick (Gordon Hayward).
So here we are looking at a couple things, one we wouldn't have Penny Hardaway which means we wouldn't have one of the biggest underachievers in the history of the sport. (trend here with Curry and Penny). Secondly we wouldn't have the nutcase, ballhog, overrated, did I say nutcase entity that is Stephon Marbury. With that '04 pick we could have picked Jameer Nelson (instead of Kirk Snyder), to run the show. Boom then we would have Nelson, Aldridge/Carmelo and Joakim Noah. That's a solid big three, it might not contend with the Miami's of the world just yet, but it's still a dynamite squad. Better than the clownfest that ensued at least. Plus we would still have Charlie Ward and he was a Heisman winner!
We basically threw away six years of cap flexibility, draft picks and good times for one 39-43 playoff season in which we were molly-whopped by the Nets in the opening round of the playoffs. It all just went downhill from there.
There you have it, now i'm going to go do something more realistic with my life.
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