hometheaterguy
Knicks Guru
STACKED?!?!?!?!
Sometimes your memory of what happened back then seems really selective
Ewing - injured for over half the playoffs
LJ - was not a great player in NY averaged about 12 points for us was never an all star with the Knicks
Dudley - LOL
Sprewell - SF in his first season as a Knick... ring any bells?
Houston - great player
Ward - not even a top 10 pg
Childs - not even a top 20 pg
So, you can argue that we had 3 all stars on our roster (Ewing, Houston, Sprewell) one of whom and our best player had very little impact on the 1999 playoffs due to missing everything from game 5 vs the Heat onwards.
Also you seem to forget JVG BUILT that NY roster of Houston, Sprewell, Camby, Ward, Larry Johnson and most of those moves received HUGE criticism. Sprewell's last move in the NBA before we acquired him was choking out P J Carlesimo... Larry Johnson was always a controversial player with his outspoken religion and had issues with many teammates in his short career... Charlie Ward was still Derek Harpers backup when JVG took over.#
I don't even know what you're trying to say about the 8th seed but whatever it is, is incorrect. We were 8th seed once under JVG in 1999, and JVG's playoff runs went like this:
96 playoffs: lost to the 72 win Bulls in JVG's first EVER season as a head coach
97 playoffs: lost to the Heat after leading 3-1 due to the suspension of Ward, Ewing, LJ, Houston and Starks
98 playoffs: Ewing out for half of the season and half of the playoffs, still beat the Heat but lost to the Pacers who actually were a STACKED team
99 playoffs: NBA finals, Ewing out for most of the playoffs
2000: lost in ECF finals
Damn yeah, its not like his record is 100 times better than MDA, or that he traded for players who would go down in the memories of Knicks fans forever right?
Houston was NOT a great player. in fact his signing was the worst thing that this franchise did besides the Ewing debacle... Do you know that Houston was signed over getting Reggie Miller!!!! That was actually admitted by Walsh when he was interviewed after taking the Knicks job... Miller was all set to come to NY, was holding out on the Pacers and they gave Houston that disgusting contract!!! That contract also caused the Knicks to trade Spree to the Wolves....
Also, again if you didn't see it with your own eyes you CAN NOT comment... OK, I saw LJ play for NY and he was a heck of a player. His numbers didn't reflect his game because his scoring took a back seat to Ewing!! OK, so Johnson's numbers were better when Ewing was out. Another reason why his numbers took a hit is because they played him out of position... If you remember, he was a 5 and they tried to make him a 4 and he would get TOASTED by true 4s so they moved him back and that also made Oakley dispensable. Spree played the 3 (averaged 18.6 points) and the 2.. He started at the 3 but played the 2 spot plenty of minutes and dominated at both positions! The Knicks should have done better but your genuis JVG dindn't know how to use these guys because he wanted to force them to play and slow, half court grinding game and spree and LJ needed more motion for their games. You could argue that JVG prevented that team from reaching it's potential especially offensively.