As teams get eliminated from the 2009 NBA playoff picture, Fork 'Em figures out what went wrong.
There's been a movement of late, first spewed by David Friedman of Pro Basketball News and later parroted by Marc Berman of the New York Post, to assert Mike D'Antoni hasn't actually helped the Knicks improve at all. This, frankly, is contrarian garbage. The Knicks didn't end up in the playoffs, but the franchise has clearly seen a new dawn.
D'Antoni improved both the Knicks' offense and their defense this season. Sure, the defense improved only a point, and it's still bad. Really bad. But the offense improved more than three points per 100 possessions, a real boost that -- while not being enough to eek New York into the East's top eight -- showed promise for D'Antoni's system here.
Mind you, the roster actually got worse over the course of the season, and there was next to no stability given the trades Donnie Walsh executed. This is a rebuilding spell where two, maybe three current players will be in Knicks uniforms in another year and change, following the Summer of 2010. This season's improvement can be measured only by the cap figure, which has improved mightily since the trade of Zach Randolph to L.A. for a retiring player and Tim Thomas.
Even if the vaunted 2010 free agent -- the LeBron, the Wade, the Bosh -- is mythical, the Knicks find themselves in position to make enormous splashes in another year. Had the status quo held, the Knicks would be trying to find a scheme that could turn David Lee into Tim Duncan and Nate Robinson into Chris Paul. Which is to say the Knicks would be trying to conjure up some Holy Water and a chalice of gold. D'Antoni improved the product, yes. Walsh improved the future.
The great thing about D'Antoni's improvements, though, is that the team has become (gasp!) watchable during the transition! Isiah's Knicks were watchable only in the sense a Final Destination movie is watchable: something insanely bad is going to happen. The D'Antoni Knicks fit more of a 2 Fast 2 Furious mold: it might suck, but it's going to take your breath away a few times. Witness last Friday's win in Orlando, in which an unconscious (and lacking conscience) Al Harrington went bottoms up from three in the fourth quarter. Offense excites, and makes losses bearable.
Knicks, you're on the right track. Look at the big picture, and you'll realize this season could have gone no better.
