SB Nation User Blog: THEWILLY

This is interesting.

THEWILLY — Mon, 12 May 2008 16:48:32 -0000

This is interesting.

Who do you NOT want on the team next year?

THEWILLY — Mon, 12 May 2008 16:35:13 -0000

Changes.

Don't say the whole team, because no matter how much we all want that, it's not going to happen. So out of these options what do you think?

Personally I think it has to be Randolph. We saw how Steph played two years ago, changing his system and putting the team first; taking over when he has to. We also saw a new Eddy Curry two years ago who was able to hang with Dwight Howard when they went one on one, granted the defense is still not there. Q can still be that three point threat off the bench.

However, Zbo... am I the only one that can't stand when he gets the ball? He does his little pause, up down move, and even if he is fully covered, will still take the awful shot. I think his acquisition destroyed any chemistry that was made in the 06-07 season.

So what do you guys think?

Poll

Who do you NOT want on the team next year?

TRUE HOOP LIVE BLOG

THEWILLY — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 22:31:02 -0000

yes yes ya'all

check the link, I'll be doing updates from there.

FANTASY BASKETBALL

THEWILLY — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 03:51:18 -0000

For those who wan to play.. yahoo.com

The league ID# is: 77664
Password: thebomb

The draft date is the 14th right now, but it can be changed I just had to set one. If you have a problem with it let me know.

Tell your friends!!!!!!1111~!~!

Who to cut?

THEWILLY — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 14:17:56 -0000

I like my rookies.

The Knicks have to get rid of two players on their roster, who should it be and why?

Many a website are saying that Isiah might stash Nichols and Chandler off to Europe or another league, but how beneficial will that be for them, if anything that'll just hinder them from reaching their potential.

I don't know if you can do this with their contracts (someone help me out) but I'd cut Jefferies and James.

Jefferies is going to get hardly any playing time with the emergence of Humpty and and Q probably starting at the 3, when he played last year, he didn't play well at all (every game i went to at the garden he was booed).

James is old and probably won't get any playing time with DLee subbing in for either Eddy or Zach. He had one decent game last year, however all of his other games made me have stomach problems.

It's time to wipe these two guys off the roster, forget about their contracts during the year, and go forward with our better "youthier" team.

Injuries

THEWILLY — Fri, 13 Apr 2007 20:59:30 -0000

Ouch.

Since David Lee died (yes, he died) on February 25th, and then the Jamal Crawford and Q injuries, the Knicks have gone 7-15.

I guess that's what happens when you lose:
PPG: 13.87
RBP: 6.96
APG: 2.83

And Drum roll please...
EFF: +15.94

I could give you a couple of games where the Knicks could've used those points.

What If

THEWILLY — Thu, 05 Apr 2007 20:16:36 -0000

Note from Seth: In lieu of some badass mammals, I give you this diary from our boy Willy, ennumerating the number of times we lost to shitty teams or came thisclose to winning. It hurts.

You know...

So what if the Knicks actually win all of these "must-win" games throughout the season?

Lets go all the way back to the beginning of the season and add up all the games the Knicks should've won. Not the games lost to teams over .500, and not to teams that are around the same record as them, but teams they should've SMACKED down.

1. November 3rd vs. Atlanta Hawks
- Joe Johnson drops 30 and shits all over the Knicks and their 17 TOs.

2. November 18th vs. Boston Celtics
- The worst part was this was a home game, the second worst part was that I attended this game, and the third worst part is that the Celtics have the second worst record in the NBA.

3. December 11th vs. Boston Celtics
- See game 2.

4. December 23rd vs. Philadelphia 76ers
- Okay so maybe the hot streak had to end sometime, but not against the 76ers who just got rid of A.I.

5. January 2nd vs. Sacramento Kings
- Ron Artest shot 68% from the floor.

6. January 12th vs. Charlotte Bobcats
- Apparent ally the Knicks forgot how to play defense.

7. January 28th vs. Milwaukee Bucks
- Buzzer Beater.

8. January 31st vs. Charlotte Bobcats
- These losses are just as frustrating as the Celtic ones.

9. February 21st vs. Philadelphia 76ers
- Kyle Korver dropped bombs over Baghdad.

10. February 28th vs. Boston Celtics
- Three losses? No good.

11. March 6th vs. Seattle Supersonics
- Marbury's missed free throw.

12. March 22nd vs. Portland Trailblazers
- Another game I went to. Dlees return is spoiled.

13. April 4th vs. Philadelphia 76ers
- Knicks still can't win after two missed free throws by Kyle Korver.

So that's thirteen games. In a perfect world that would make the Knicks 44-30, good for 1st place in the Atlantic and the third seed in the East. Even if they didn't win all of these games, winning one or two against one of these teams would help them out right now.

Now I know what they mean by "must-win" games, look how it's effecting them now.

Knicks Roster for Next Year

THEWILLY — Sun, 01 Apr 2007 00:14:05 -0000

Uhh, does anyone else see the problem here?

Uh Oh.

No expiring contracts, no one dropping to free agency except for Cato, now what?

There's a significant drop in payroll, mostly because of Allan Houston's contract and all the rest of the contracts that were bought out. Those contracts are the main reason the Knicks have the highest payroll in basketball, another grief I'm going to have with mainstream media who say "The Knicks have the highest payroll, no reason for them to not do well." Well, after this year they go from $139,381,526 to $87,779,428, which will probably end up being around 90,000,000 after signing their two rookies. The second largest payroll, held by Dallas will be around $83,000,000. Not such a big payroll anymore.

This is our position breakdown for next year.
(Projections are taken from percentages taken from 82games.com, the leading player with the highest percentage of time played at that percentage, the last with the lowest percentage)

C: Curry(68)Frye(13)/Lee(7)/James(6)/Rose(1)/Morris
SF: Richardson(38)/Jeffries(21)/Balkman(16)/Crawford(9)/Lee(6)/Rose(3)/Collins(2)/Francis(1)
PF: Lee(34)/Frye(33)/Rose(11)/Balkman(6)/Curry(2)/Richardson(2)/Morris
PG: Marbury(63)/Robinson(28)/Crawford(3)/Francis(3)
SG: Crawford(49)/Francis(23)/Collins(6)Richardson(5)/Marbury(12)/Balkman(2)

Realistically cut-down depth chart

C: Curry/Frye/Morris/James
SF: Richardson/Jefferies/Balkman
PF: Lee/Frye/Balkman/Morris
PG: Marbury/Francis/Robinson/Collins
SG: Crawford/Richardson/Francis

Players that should be trades: Frye, Jeffries, Francis. This would open up more room for players like Balkman who would cancel-out the defense lost by trading Jeffries, getting rid of Francis would move a developing Robinson and Collins up the line.

Frye has lost his touch this season and has become expendable.

All the mock drafts I've read have the Knicks picking up a SG the first round, so we'll see how it develops in the next couple of weeks.

03/22/07: Portland Trailblazers

THEWILLY — Fri, 23 Mar 2007 22:59:47 -0000

WTF

This is my first year really paying full attention to the Knicks' season. I've seen about 80% of their games, and let me tell you, there hasn't been a team that has made me so excited, yet so frustrated at the same time.

Last night was a great example.

I attended last nights game, it was my third time visiting the garden this season. I went November 19th, loss to the Celtics, and the loss they had to the Suns a couple of weeks ago. I figured that they'd win tonight, I didn't want to feel like I was bad luck.

So my friends, brother, and I stationed ourselves center court..... in the rafters and got ready for the game ahead of us.

The Garden wasn't packed, I'm pretty sure it was more filled for the Suns game, but there was a good amount of people, and buzz at the game.

During the intros there is an obvious PR boost going on for Renaldo Balkman. He deserves it as well. I mentioned it on the old blog, he is the African American version of David Lee, except Renaldo plays better defense. It was a shame that they he didn't receive more minutes while Lee had all of his ankle problems, and while Q is out with his back problems.

The first thing I notice is that David Lee was on the court.... but not in a suit. That might've been another reason why the arena was buzzing as well.

I didn't take game notes, but I'll go off of everything that's on the top of my head.

David Lee checks in and gets a huge applause, as does Renaldo Balkman when he checks in, you'd think that the team would go buck with the amount of energy on the court, but the play is pretty stagnant.

What I noticed is that a big reason why the offense is stagnant is Eddy Curry. He's not moving... at all. In the beginning of the season he'd grab the ball and fight the person guarding him. The past couple of games he just would sit there, wait for the double team and then dish it out. The Eddy Curry of old would grab the ball and go straight to the hoop, this was not the case last night. Only one one or two of his possessions did he really show fight, the rest of the time he just didn't move.. terrible.

Because of Curry's lackluster(ohsnap) effort, the offense looked lost. Steph wasn't driving to the hoop, and when he did, he'd miss (of course he'd drive when Balkman or Lee are off the court). Stevie was taking terrible shots, and whenever they'd get it to Eddy, he'd dish it back out to the perimeter with less than 5 on the shot clock, resulting in the many threes taken, and many threes missed.

Speaking of Stevie, ever since he came back I've felt that the offense took a step back. I knew Jamal was known for his sometimes bad shot selection, but ever since he came back it just seems that he should take the final shot, no matter what. He went 1-6 from three point land and 4-16 overall.

NO FREE THROWS. At all. There was no driving into the paint, and when both of your guards are having terrible nights, and you have two great finishers (Balkman and Lee) on the court, drive to the fucking paint and try to put something in, if you don't miss get out of the fucking way because one of those two finishers is going to come and rape the rim. This didn't happen at all, the Knicks just resorted to terrible three point attempts that came and bit them in the ass.

They didn't feed the hot hand. Nate had 31 points. 31 wasn't enough. He wasn't missing shots, and it seems like he has honed his shot selection down quite a bit. Every single shot him made last night ignited the crowd, and Nate himself would ignite the crowd when he would jump five feet into the air to drag down a rebound. Clyde constantly beckons the Knicks to reward players, and feed the hot hand, yet it never seems like they do.

Oh yeah, defense.. well it looks a whole helluva a lot worse in person than it does on T.V.

Nate would set the Garden on fire, and then the defense and bad shot selection would just bring it right back down. It was a roller coast of a ride, and at the end I really just felt like throwing up. Thank god the season is almost over, I don't know how many more of these rides I can take.

Open NCAA Tourney Diary

THEWILLY — Fri, 16 Mar 2007 16:26:06 -0000

March Madness is here.

I'm bored because I have a snow day, it's blizzarding out, and I'm a senior with no HW. So what better timing for March Madness to begin.

So far my bracket is decent, I had Duke, TT, OD and Zags advancing to the second round, but no farther than that so I'm alright. Everything else I got right.

Hoping for the GATech upset over over UNLV and Purdue over Arizona.

Right now Albany, a school that abunch of people from my school will be attending next year is getting beat by Virginia, sweet.

Along with a Fantasy Basketball league, we should start some brackets for this blog next year.

Anybody that's into the tournament, if that's anyone, make comments here. I'll start another diary at the start of the second round.