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Steve Francis is in NO WAY Spurs material. He got run because of a ty at ude, refusing to re-enter a game, and constantly battling with Brian Hill. Who needs that ?
This is justice.
Larry Brown has finally found someone who trades players like tinker toys worse than him.
Between him and zeke...I would imagine the average stay in NY for a player, would be something like 15 minutes.
Steve Francis is in NO WAY Spurs material. He got run because of a ty at ude, refusing to re-enter a game, and constantly battling with Brian Hill. Who needs that ?
My guess is that they "Tim Thomas" him. He hasn't been in NY for months because of rehabbbing from injuries, and basicly backstabbed Brian Hill last time around and got him fired.magic should let penny wear one and retire the number
ps...i loved this dude back in his hay-day
Ironic...Penny and Starbury together....two great players who will never win a ring...
Sad.
That already happened.
I'm not upto date on the CBA, are the Knicks able to trade Francis on straight away or is there a time limit?
I believe it could depend on the contract, but yes, they should be able to unload him if the wanted to. There is only a hold on a player who signed as a FA.
Francis is there to stay in NY. Wouldn't surprise me if Stephon got moved though
Steph,Crawford, and Francis should all start. It could really help them defensively
LOLz
Well, Isiah was one heck of a SCORING PG in his time, so for him recruiting two of that kind for his project doesn't really surprise me. Perhaps he wants to press for a NEW kind of game, BASKETBALLS, with two ballhogs with their respective ball to play on in the same time
February 23, 2006
Sports of The Times
Knicks Look Like '71 Team, Only Different
By GEORGE VECSEY
IT'S kind of like the day Earl (the Pearl) Monroe moved up the seaboard from Baltimore to New York. Kind of. That is to say, the Knicks now have a glut of players with more or less the same skills and job description.
There is a scintilla of difference between now and Nov. 10, 1971. The Knicks back then were a great team. These Knicks, on the other hand, seemed to plunge even deeper into their own personal twilight zone yesterday when they acquired Steve Francis for what might be a telltale bargain cost.
With the newly acquired Francis in the building but not in uniform, the Knicks were trounced by Miami, 103-83, last night, with more boos echoing in the Garden and Coach Larry Brown telling the refs at one point, "Maybe we aren't very good, but we deserve a fair doggone call."
It doesn't work that way. Never has.
Starting Friday, the Knicks will put Francis and Stephon Marbury, the in bent controller of the ball, into the same backcourt. It sounds remarkably like some sick reality show. They are not a great team right now, this season, this decade, this generation, and, dare we say it, this ownership by the Dolans of Cablevision fame.
Some of us are old enough to remember the communal fretting over what in the world the Knicks were going to do with Walt (Clyde) Frazier and Earl the Pearl in the same backcourt, to say nothing of Barnett, the in bent shooter. How could you divide three into two and make it work?
But it did work because the Knicks were loaded with mature, smart, skilled winners who learned to share the ball and do the dirty work together. Not exactly like these Knicks that Isiah Thomas has assembled before our stunned eyes.
It worked out in 1971 because Red Holzman had a grip on a team that included players like Reed, DeBusschere, Bradley, Lucas and Jackson — no first names needed — to say nothing of Frazier and Monroe.
It was Red's team, and he knew how to tweak it. He had won a championship in the spring of 1970, and he would win another one with Frazier and Monroe starting in the backcourt in 1972-73. That is ancient history, only worth resurrecting when somebody tries the same experiment in these modern times.
"Nobody thought Earl would fit in," said Larry Brown, who gets to coach this Fantasy Island experiment.
Pat Riley, making his return to the Garden in his second term as the Heat's coach, seemed bemused by the Knicks' willingness to acquire Francis, saying it indicated "a lot of deep pockets here, I guess." He also labeled Francis "a gift for the Knicks."
You know what they say about gift horses. The Knicks are willing to absorb Francis's contract (and ego and assorted issues with other teams) because they are desperate, just dying in public.
They gave up Trevor Ariza, who rarely played, and Penny Hardaway, who almost never suited up. Must be nice to be really rich. Anybody who subscribes to Cablevision can be delighted that the proceeds are going to subsidize frolics like this.
There is nothing intrinsically wrong with a lot of talent, even when the rules permit only one basketball in action at any given time. That was the big worry when Monroe stutter-stepped his way to the Garden.
But those people knew how to evade the defense, find the open man, make the simple shot — odd little skills not currently in fashion.
Other great teams have had plenty of talent in the backcourt, as Brown recalled last night, referring to the three-man tandem of Joe Dumars, Vinny Johnson and, yes, that Isiah Thomas of the Detroit Pistons. "They took the pressure off each other," Brown said.
These Knicks do not have that championship look. Francis said the politic things last night, including: "I'm just a ballplayer, man. It doesn't matter who brings the ball up."
But it does matter who runs the plays, who passes the ball, and who shoots. The Knicks have been remarkably unfocused this year, as Brown has seemed unable to pick a nucleus from the mismatched or overlapping players Thomas assembled. Nothing has worked, particularly while Marbury has been out with a sore shoulder during the recent losing streak. Thomas stressed Francis's career average of six rebounds a game, suggesting that the two guards could coexist doing different chores.
"Am I the person who can put it together?" Francis asked last night. "I hope."
These two activist guards could be a short-term experiment, anyway. Even Thomas and Brown are symptoms of an ownership grasping at straws.
Everybody is just passing through the Garden, like tourists, only instead of paying a few bucks for a glimpse of the World's Most Famous Arena, all these visitors are paid, and paid handsomely.
If Francis and Marbury don't work out, other players will come along. Just like Frazier and Monroe. Kind of.
E-mail: [email protected]
* Copyright 2006The New York Times Company
I feel dumber for reading this thread. Thanks Isiah!
and look how happy Larry Brown is!
Marbury....Francis will wear #8Who'll be no. 3?
LMAO at that photo.
This has me laughing my ass off because about a week or two ago Steve Kerr ranked the Knicks dead last in the league and said,
If they can just trade for one more maximum salaried player who is well past his prime, they just might turn things around.
http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/news?slu...yhoo&type=lgns
The only possible explanation is that Isiah read this and took it to heart.
Francis decided to use #1
Damn. Isiah is an idiot.
Wow.
Bonehead move after bonehead move.
I am pretty much befuddled with what New York has done.
I am not a great fan of Steve Francis. He rubbed me the wrong way when he came into the league and demanded that Vancouver trade him. He just isn't the type of player that can make your team better or that can get you where you are trying to get to. He is very talented, but his skills are built around his individual success and not around the success of a team.
Any time you take on such a brilliant nickname as "Franchise," that name has to have some validity behind it and I don't think he has shown that he is a franchise player. It is not going to work for him even moving to New York.
This is another in a long list of desperate moves for the Knicks, going back to the Eddy Curry deal. Eddy Curry's success coming to New York has been about as good as my success coming back to Chicago when my career was pretty much done. He hasn't made any impact on that team, which, I am sure for John Paxson, is the best thing to happen. He just let his No. 1 draft pick go and got another one back. It was a good wash for them, because they didn't lose that draft pick. They sort of gambled on it, played with it, let it go, but then they got it back.
Isiah has brought in players on top of players. He isn't giving one player an opportunity to succeed. You have Stephon Marbury there. Then you bring in Jamal Crawford. Now Steve Francis.
What are you going to do with these guys?
These are three guys that love to pound the basketball and create their own shots. Who is going to succeed at that position? To me it seems like they have just told Isiah to just go out there and continue to see if we can have the highest payroll.
I don't see any chemistry with New York. I don't see that trade helping the Knicks in any way and as for Orlando, they have written this season off and are preparing themselves to continue rebuilding their young team. They want to get guys in there that can in the next three or four years be part of what they have been able to establish.
It is going to be the same type of situation. A lot of it has to do with the individual players. Players in today's game are not geared for winning. They aren't geared for a team concept. They're basically trying to get into the game and they have no knowledge as to what the game is really about.
-Scottie Pippen
http://www.nba.com/news/movement_2006.html
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