New York Knicks: How the hole grew deeper through the Isiah Thomas era

NBA Jeff Van GundyMandatory Credit: Ezra O. Shaw/Allsport
NBA Jeff Van GundyMandatory Credit: Ezra O. Shaw/Allsport
4 of 8
NBA
NBA Antonio McDyess (Photo by Nick Laham/Getty Images)

The McDyess trade becomes an unmitigated disaster

In the 2001- 02 season that had just wrapped up, McDyess, the 27-year-old power forward played only 10 games after having surgery to repair a partial tear of the patella tendon in his left knee. Of course, as is standard, McDyess went through a physical as part of the trade and apparently nothing was amiss.

I guess when comparing McDyess’ injury history to Marcus Camby’s, it seemed like McDyess was the lesser of two evils?

My question here is, why, why, why would an organization be choosing between two 27-year-old guys who both come with serious injury concerns when they could be getting new, healthy, young talent through the draft?

Oh, right. No one in the Knicks’ organization had the big picture vision needed to say, “Hey guys, what we’re doing isn’t working. We need to rebuild.”

Comparing McDyess and Camby’s stats for the 2001-02 season, there’s no reason to pick McDyess, who played 10  games and averaged11.3 points over Camby who played 29 games and averaged 11.1 points.

Rather, they must have been counting on McDyess recovering from his injury enough to return to numbers like those he posted in the previous two seasons where his production was significantly higher than Camby’s.

To say that they would be disappointed would be a massive understatement.

McDyess would play only three pre-season games for the Knicks before fracturing his left kneecap requiring him to undergo another surgery. He would subsequently miss the entire 2002- 03 season.

Insert face-palm here.

Middle of the road finish hampers Knicks’ ability to get new talent

The Knicks would finish the 2002- 03 regular season in 9th place in the Eastern Conference with a record of 37 and 45 putting them firmly in NBA no man’s land. They were just bad enough to miss the playoffs but not bad enough to get a high pick in the 2003 draft which brought LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Carmelo Anthony to the NBA.