Lichtenstein: Believe It Or Not, The Knicks Are In Better Shape Than The Nets
By Steve Lichtenstein
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As a long-suffering Nets fan, I'll take any win they can get these days.
Sure, Brooklyn's 98-93 victory at Madison Square Garden on Tuesday night won't help them when they face the defending-champion Spurs on Wednesday, but the 7-9 Nets can't afford to give any more of these games against the league's dreck away.
And make no mistake, the Knicks are colossally awful. They have no clue when it comes to team defense, and for all the talk of the triangle offense they are at their best when Carmelo Anthony, Jose Calderon and their gaggle of shooting guards hoist a boatload of threes between Amar'e Stoudemire post feedings. All those turnovers and big men taking mid-range jump shots fly in the face of everything we now know about offensive efficiency. Pythagoras would disown his theorem entirely if he were alive to witness what the Knicks are doing with his pet shape.
However, and this is probably the last thing Knicks fans want to hear right now, they are actually closer to their preferred destination than the Nets.
Yes, Brooklyn has a good shot at squeaking into one of the final postseason slots in a historically weak Eastern Conference.
But then what? The Nets have yet to defeat a team with a winning record, let alone one of the prospective top seeds, this season.
Despite coach Lionel Hollins' vocal urgings, they are who they are: a soft team that often crumbles at the first sign of adversity.
Don't be fooled by the Nets' 49-40 rebounding advantage (including 21-13 off the offensive glass) on Tuesday. Again, the Knicks had a lot to do with that. The Nets entered the contest in the bottom third of all the league's rebounding metrics.
To Hollins' fault, the offense is too centered around rehabilitating Brook Lopez -- who broke out against laissez-faire Knicks interior defense to score 23 points on Tuesday --when they should be making sure that Joe Johnson gets his touches every game.
Lately, Johnson has been guilty of sometimes checking out mentally due to his struggles finding his shooting rhythm. After calling out his teammates for playing a little "selfishly" after an earlier win over Orlando, Johnson went 46-for-110 from the floor.
That was extended to 46-for-114 after Johnson's three-point first half against the Knicks.
Johnson got back on track during a marvelous two-way third-quarter effort and finished with 22 points. But he must know that things will be different when San Antonio's Kawhi Leonard hounds him, as opposed to Anthony falling asleep on the defensive end.
For those who dismiss the importance of Iso-Joe to the Nets, let's not forget that Brooklyn wouldn't have survived its first-round series against Toronto last season were it not for Johnson checking into Beast Mode.
So assume the Nets mosey along the way at their current pace -- or even do a little bit better -- and then enter and exit the playoffs in a blink of an eye while the Knicks continue to ... ahem ... tank.
What would Brooklyn accomplish?
Not only will the Nets have wasted what is likely to be the final season for Kevin Garnett -- who at age 38 is still their best defender -- but they will still be salary cap-strapped for the next two seasons.
Barring a trade that subtracts Johnson, Lopez or Deron Williams, of course.
Since those three each have their own albatrosses (injury history, bad contract) to bear and would not return fair value from any competent trade partner, it would be the equivalent of blowing the team up.
Which would put the Nets back in the lottery. Only without their own first-round draft pick until -- get ready for this -- 2019!
Thanks to general manager Billy King's wheeling and dealing over the last few summers -- I'll be focusing on that topic sometime in the next week -- the best the Nets can hope for is Atlanta or Boston to stink worse than they do in one of the odd years those teams have the option to swap picks.
Contrast that with the Knicks, who have a superstar still in his prime (though some will argue he's wasting away his prime) locked under contract, their own 2015 first-round pick and salary-cap room to add free agents when the ridiculous contracts of Stoudemire and Andrea Bargnani expire after this season.
Per basketball-reference.com, the Knicks only have about $42 million committed to their 2015-16 payroll (assuming all player and team options are exercised).
Knicks President Phil Jackson may be new at this game, but he seems to be in prime position to build a ball club his way. Even if they don't land a top free agent this offseason, as long as Jackson doesn't do something stupid -- like take on more bad contracts to replace Stoudemire and/or Bargnani in a misguided attempt to win more games this season -- the Knicks will have assets to make significant improvements in due course.
So yes, Nets fans like myself can gloat all we want about this season's dominance over our cross-river rivals, but we should be more worried that it will be very short-lived.
The future, unfortunately, will likely belong to the Knicks.
For a FAN's perspective of the Nets, Jets and the NHL, follow Steve on Twitter @SteveLichtenst1.
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