The New York Knicks playoff hopes hang by a thread. They're two games back of the Atlanta Hawks with four games to play, and so it's gotten to the point of playing what-if scenarios. Coach Mike Woodson did so by pointing to an elbow injury to forward Andrea Bargnani as one reason the season went south:
Knicks face the reality of the Andrea Bargnani trade
The New York Knicks put a lot of chips on Andrea Bargnani making a difference, but the numbers don’t support their case.
Jim O’Connor-USA TODAY Sports
Woodson suggests things could've been different this yr had Bargnani stayed healthy. Used the oft-referenced "big piece of the puzzle" line
— Chris Herring (@HerringWSJ) April 11, 2014 And so the head-shaking in New York continues.
To be fair, the Knicks’ relative success in the past few months hasn’t just coincided with Bargnani’s departure. Since his absence, New York has gone 18-18, but other pieces have helped with the turnaround.
Photo credit: Robert Hanashiro-USA TODAY Sport Amare Stoudemire has put in productive time since his minutes restriction was lifted, and J.R. Smith has finally found solid footing after getting over an offseason knee injury and then dealing with a myriad of midseason distractions. Maybe most importantly, Tyson Chandler has been relatively healthy after sitting out November, December and even parts of January.
Still, it’s hard to let Woodson off the hook after his Bargnani assertion.
Let's go back to this summer, when former Knicks general manager Glen Grunwald got the Toronto Raptors to bite on a deal to part with the former first overall draft pick -- really it was the Raptors getting the Knicks to bite on giving up an arm and a leg. In an intricate package, Grunwald most painfully dealt three-point shooter Steve Novak and a first-round draft pick for Bargnani.
According to the New York Post’s Marc Berman, other NBA executives were baffled New York couldn’t see what was coming:
“Getting anything for him was a surprise,” a Western Conference executive said. “But you get desperate. The guy has talent, a 7-footer, mobile, his first few years he made shots. But I question his love for the game and mental makeup. I’m surprised the Knicks didn’t do more homework on him.”
Bargnani averaged 13.3 points, 5.3 rebounds per game and shot a decent enough 44 percent from the floor this season. While it’s the big man’s defense that might be criticized most often, it’s his offense that was more harmful than good. In 42 games before his elbow injury, the Knicks ranked 18th in the league by scoring 101.7 points per 100 possessions. Since, they’ve had the NBA’s fifth-best offense at 109.2 points per 100 possessions while the defense has hardly dropped off.
Again, other factors are at play, but then there’s this gem from Berman, courtesy of an NBA scout:
“They got him as a stretch 4, but he hasn’t been a stretch 4 for years,” an NBA scout said.
Photo credit: The Star-Ledger-USA TODAY Sports Bargnani shot 27.8 percent from three-point land this year, but it wasn’t an aberration. He has shot better than 40 percent from three-point range in just one of his eight NBA seasons and hasn’t shot better than 35 percent in the last three years.
If a man labeled as a bad defender and three-point gunner is arguably worse at his proposed best skill than his biggest weakness, what does that make him?
Before the season, Grunwald was replaced as general manager by Steve Mills and sent into an advisory role. The Knicks have since signed Phil Jackson to run the basketball operations his way. Jackson now gets to deal with Bargnani's contract, which pays him $11.5 million next season before expiring.
It’s hard to see where this story ends, but it might be best the Knicks let the Bargnani experiment fade away.
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