The New York Knicks are a team of rich history. Given the state of their tradition, who would make the roster on an all-time Knicks squad?
By Bryan Pol
The Knicks are just over two months away from tipping off on the road against the Milwaukee Bucks on October 28. Despite the relative excitement surrounding the upcoming season, the Knicks and the NBA are in the thick of a dry spell, with training camp some time away.
Given the lull, and Knick fans having the ability to log tremendous time playing as the ’71-’72 and the ’94-’95 Knicks in NBA 2K15, many look back on years’ past in anticipation for the season ahead.
Consequently, Harvey Araton’s tell-all book, When the Garden was Eden, and the companion piece that followed, ESPN Film’s 30 for 30 documentary of the same name, proved just how delightful it was to follow the Knicks in the ’70s, and the Pat Riley/Jeff Van Gundy-era Knicks of the ’90s, lead by all-time great Patrick Ewing, who made the NBA Finals twice, were equally enthralling to watch.
Given the Knicks’ rich history, who would make an all-time roster for the team that has wowed its fans for decades playing in a basketball mecca, the World’s Most Famous Arena?
Elite Sports NY examines the makeup of a hypothetical, all-time, 12-man roster, player by player, that spans the Knicks’ seasons since their inception in 1946. Included is a five-man starting lineup, a seven-man bench, and a coach to lead them. Statistics provided will not include their tenure with any other club but the Knicks.
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Starting PG: Walt “Clyde” Frazier
- Stats from 1967 to 1977:
- 19.3 PPG, 5.9 RPG, 6.1 APG, 1.9 STL
Frazier, ever the fashion and style aficionado, made a name for himself playing and commentating for the Knicks, donning garish and highly outlandish outfits off the court, an element of his personality chronicled in the ESPN 30 for 30 Short “Disdain the Mundane,” the title of which underlines his use of vibrant vocabulary during MSG broadcasts opposite Mike Breen.
Inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1987 in light of his decorated service with the Knicks, Frazier “wheeled and dealed” and “razzled and dazzled” for the Knickerbockers in the 1970s, helping New York win two titles during his time there. Although his center mate Willis Reed is noted for heroically limping onto the court for Game 7 of the 1970 NBA Finals to provide a morale boost for a team who was not aware he would even play, Frazier was the true star in that contest, torching the Lakers, who boasted a Hall of Fame lineup of Wilt Chamberlain, Jerry West, and Elgin Baylor, for 36 points and 19 assists in a 113-99 win.
Named to the NBA’s 50th Anniversary All-Time Team in 1996, Frazier held many Knick records until they were eclipsed by Patrick Ewing, but still accumulated the most assists in Knick history, dishing out 4,791 dimes in total. As the engine of the “Rolls Royce Backcourt” alongside guard Earl Monroe, Frazier had his number 10 retired in 1979, odd considering he was still suiting up for the Cleveland Cavaliers, who acquired him in 1977.
In addition to his accolades as player and commentator, Frazier was a seven-time All-Star (1970-1976), four-time All-NBA First Team guard (1970, 1972, 1974-1975), a two-time All-NBA Second Team guard (1971, 1973), and a seven-time All-Defensive First Team star (1969-1975), all with the Knicks.
Of all the players on this list, Frazier is easily its most boisterous, a man of style, class, and debonair demeanor with which “Broadway” Joe Namath himself cannot even contend.
Starting SG: Earl “The Pearl” Monroe
- Stats from 1972 to 1980:
- 16.2 PPG, 2.6 RPG, 3.5 APG, 1.0 STL
While his backcourt mate Walt Frazier can boast of having his number hung in the rafters at Madison Square Garden, Earl “The Pearl” Monroe has had his number retired twice, once with New York and another time with the Baltimore Bullets, for whom Monroe played prior to joining the Knicks in 1972, a year before he helped lead the Knicks to their second title.
With as much flamboyance as Frazier, many worried that Monroe and Clyde would not be able to coexist. Thankfully, Frazier and Monroe proved otherwise, forming one of the best NBA backcourt tandems of all-time, by which they combined to average 37.6 points per game and 9.5 assists per game in their six seasons together, commanding a Red Holzman mantra of play that demanded selflessness and a team-first mentality.
A four-time All-Star (1969, 1971, 1975, 1977), twice with the Knicks, Monroe, the 1968 NBA Rookie of the Year, was named to the 50th Anniversary All-Time Team in 1996 beside his running mate Frazier, and was enshrined in the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1990.
Silky and smooth on the court, Monroe once bragged of himself, “You know, I watch the games and even now I never see anyone who reminds me of me, the way I played.”
Starting SF: Bernard King
- Stats from 1982 to 1987:
- 26.5 PPG, 5.2 RPG, 2.8 APG, 1.2 STL
In the 1984-85 campaign, in which he was an All-Star, offensive wunderkind Bernard King lead the NBA in scoring average at 32.9 points per game. By his 55th game of the season, in a contest against the Kansas City Kings, King, who dropped 37 in the game, went up to attempt a block on Reggie Theus and came crashing down, tearing his ACL and breaking his leg in the process. King would miss the entire 1985-86 season in light of surgery to repair the injury, along with a large portion of the following season, but he would never be the same. In the six games of his return season in 1986-87, King would work diligently enough to average 22.7 points per game, but his explosiveness to the hoop was gone, and he was released by New York in 1987.
Many observe King and ask themselves, “What could have been?” In King’s absence, New York fell to 24-58, putrid enough to earn the number one overall pick in Patrick Ewing. Alas, the tandem of King and the former Georgetown legend were never fated to play a healthy run of seasons together, depriving the Knicks of some late 1980s glory with Larry Bird’s Celtics and Magic Johnson’s Los Angeles Lakers on the decline.
Regardless, prior to his injury, King was an incendiary player on offense. In 1984, King would become the first player since 1964 to score 50 points in consecutive games, doing so against San Antonio and Dallas. On Christmas Day of the 1984-85 season, King scored 60 games against the New Jersey Nets in a losing effort, becoming only the tenth player in NBA history to accomplish the feat.
By the time he retired with the Nets in 1991-92, following a relatively torrid run with the Washington Bullets (he averaged 28.4 points per game in his final All-Star season there, and was the league’s third-leading scoring despite playing only 64 games), King was the NBA’s sixteenth-leading scoring of all-time, remarkable considering the nature of his knee ailments.
King was a four-time NBA All-Star (1982, 1984-1985, 1991), twice with the Knicks, and two-time All-NBA First Team selection (1984, 1985), winning a scoring title in 1985.
King, a Tennessee Volunteer teammate of Ernie Grunfeld’s, who would later become vice president of player personnel with the Knicks, was the subject, alongside Grunfeld, of the ESPN 30 for 30 film Bernie and Ernie. In 2013, King was ultimately named to the Basketball Hall of Fame alongside coach Rick Pitino and Seattle Supersonics point guard Gary Payton, cementing his legacy as a worthy, all-time great.
Starting PF: Dave DeBusschere
- Stats from 1969 to 1974:
- 16.0 PPG, 10.7 RPG, 3.1 APG, 0.9 STL
Forward Dave DeBusschere was the epitome of the blue collar, defensive-minded Knicks of the 1970s, earning raucous chants of “DE-FENSE!” with his hard-nosed play and penchant for rebounding the basketball. In fact, no “DE-FENSE!” chants are likely heard on a nightly basis today without the efforts of Red Holzman and DeBusschere’s Knicks of the ’70s, a time when “The Garden was Eden.”
DeBusschere was an eight-time All-Star (1966-1968, 1969-1974), six times with the Knicks, a six-time NBA All-Defensive First Team selection (1969-1974), all with the Knicks, and an All-NBA Second Team selection with New York in 1969.
Alongside Frazier and Monroe, DeBusschere was named to the 50th Anniversary All-Time Team in 1996, had his number 22 retired with New York, and was named to the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1983, when, two years later, as assistant coach and director of basketball operation for the Knicks, DeBusschere would land the number one overall pick in center Patrick Ewing.
DeBusschere, with sheer tenacity on defense and all-around physicality on the court, would anchor a style of play head coach Pat Riley would later mimic with Ewing and forward Charles Oakley as his front court tandem that brought Holzman’s Knicks, at least defensively, back to life in the 1990s.
Starting C: Patrick Ewing
- Stats from 1986 to 2000:
- 22.8 PPG, 10.4 RPG, 2.0 APG, 1.0 STL, 2.7 BLK
For a time, Walt Frazier was the greatest Knick to ever suit up, holding the franchise records for most games played (759), minutes played (28,995), field goals attempted (11,669), field goals made (5,736), free throws attempted (4,017), free throws made (3,145), assists (4,791) and points (14,617).
Then along came Patrick Aloysius Ewing, the overall number one pick in the 1985 NBA Draft, to take every last franchise record once held by Frazier, save for assists.
Without question, Patrick Ewing holds the mantle as the greatest player in the organization’s history, nearly taking New York to the promised land in the 1993-94 season by pushing the Houston Rockets to seven games in the NBA Finals, bowing out by a slim margin of 90-84 in Game 7. The series loss was no fault of Ewing’s, who ended the series with the most blocks in an NBA Finals series (later eclipsed by Tim Duncan in 2003) and the most blocks in a single NBA Finals game (8, later broken by Dwight Howard in 2009).
Ewing would become the sixth Knick, alongside Frazier, Dave DeBusschere, Willis Reed, and Jerry Lucas, to be named to the 50th Anniversary All-Time Team, having his iconic number 33 retired in 2003.
Ewing lead the NBA in total defensive rebounds in 1992-93 (he ranks tenth all-time in the statistic, with 8,855 to his credit), and is eighth all-time in blocked shots (2,894) and ninth all-time in defensive win shares (81.4).
As the Knicks’ all-time leading scorer, Ewing was the 1986 NBA Rookie of the Year, an eleven-time NBA All-Star (1986, 1988-1997), one-time All-NBA First Team selection (1990), six-time All-NBA Second Team center (1988-1989, 1991-1993, 1997), three-time NBA All-Defensive Second team selection (1988-1989, 1992) and a Gold Medal Olympian with the 1992 Dream Team, pairing up with David Robinson as the world’s greatest centers in Barcelona.
Alongside his 1994 NBA Finals opponent Hakeem Olajuwon, Ewing was inducted to the Basketball Hall of Fame in 2008.
Of all decisions made for this list, giving Ewing the nod as starting center was the easiest choice of them all. He was a warrior and heart of the Knicks for the late ’80s and the better part of the ’90s, bringing electricity back to The Garden for all of his years in blue and orange.
2nd Team PG: Mark Jackson
- Stats from 1987 to 1992; 2001 to 2002:
- 11.1 PPG, 4.0 RPG, 8.0 APG, 1.4 STL
Seeing Mark Jackson travel from St. John’s University to play professionally at The Garden was a dream come to life for many New Yorkers.
With the Knicks, Jackson was the NBA Rookie of the Year (1988) and an NBA All-Star (1989), amassing the most assists (935) in the 1996-97 season with the Indiana Pacers. Now an NBA analyst and former coach of the Golden State Warriors, Jackson, a playmaker with tremendous playoff pedigree, is ranked fourth on the all-time assists list, with 10,323.
Under head coach Rick Pitino, Jackson averaged 13.6 points and 10.6 assists per game, earning the 1988 Rookie of the Year. As the 18th overall pick in the 1987 NBA Draft, Jackson holds the distinction of being the lowest draft pick ever to win the league’s Rookie of the Year award.
In the 1989-90 season, Jackson lead a Knicks’ attack as point guard of the Eastern Conference’s 5th seed, shocking the 4-seed Boston Celtics, who finished seven games ahead of New York in the standings, by besting them in five games, winning Game 5 on the road 121-114. The result ultimately avenged a four-game series loss from two years prior.
Despite playoff success with New York in the thick of the Detroit Pistons’ Bad Boy era, Jackson was traded to the Los Angeles Clippers in 1992, where he would lead the Clips to their second straight playoff berth, a feat they would not accomplish for another twenty years.
Jackson, who felt spurned in leaving New York, would get revenge against them with the Indiana Pacers, who, in pairing with Reggie Miller, would beat his former Knicks in the 1995 Eastern Conference semifinals, a seven-game series victory that was the focal point of ESPN’s 30 for 30 film Winning Time: Reggie Miller vs. The New York Knicks.
Jackson would reunite with the Knicks again in 2001-02, only to lose in the playoffs to the Toronto Raptors, the team that dealt him away at the trade deadline.
Irascible and diminutive, Jackson was an entertaining Knick to follow. Alas, New York has not had a point guard of his caliber since his departure, something never quite rectified in the James Dolan era.
2nd Team SG: John Starks
- Stats from 1990 to 1998:
- 14.1 PPG, 2.7 RPG, 4.0 APG, 1.2 STL
Many would argue that shooting guard Allan Houston deserves to be the first guard off the bench for an all-time Knicks team. Same could even be stated for Dick Barnett, a major offensive piece for Holzman’s Knicks in the ’70s, and Richie Guerin, a Hall of Fame Knickerbocker and six-time NBA All-Star in the 50’s and ’60s who once averaged 29.5 points per game in the 1961-1962 season, but only made the postseason twice in his eight seasons in New York (shockingly, both Barnett and Guerin do not feature on this list, a tough decision that demonstrates how deep the Knicks were in the backcourt across their history).
Statistically, they are not wrong.
But John Starks was the absolute, unquestioned heart and soul of the Pat Riley/Jeff Van Gundy era Knicks, a player who personified determination in bouncing around from three community colleges, to playing for the Golden State Warriors, after going undrafted in 1988, toiling around in the CBA (with Cedar Rapids Silver Bullets) and the WBL (with the Memphis Rockers), before landing with the Knicks in 1990.
An NBA All-Star (1994), NBA All-Defensive Second Team selection (1993), and NBA Sixth Man of the Year (1997) with the Knicks, Starks was often the Knicks’ spark plug for the team on offense and defense, thrusting the Knicks to a 2-0 series lead in the 1992-93 Eastern Conference Finals with arguably the greatest play in Knicks’ history: “The Dunk” over Michael Jordan and Horace Grant along the baseline in Game 2 of the series. Had it not been for another series of moments–Charles Smith getting rejected four consecutive times in the closing moments of Game 5 with the Knicks looking to take a 3-2 series lead–that Starks flush would have been revered as the impetus of Patrick Ewing’s Knicks finally beating a Michael Jordan-lead Bulls team.
Alas, “almost” only figures in horseshoes and hand grenades.
[su_youtube_advanced url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCTfxOrX4k8″]Undoubtedly, Starks was a hothead who often let the likes of Reggie Miller and Michael Jordan get inside his head. In fact, Starks would get ejected from a playoff game after head-butting Miller square in the chest in the heat of a rather tense moment instigated by the Pacer guard and arch nemesis of Spike Lee’s.
Without question, there was not a shot that Starks did not like, a mentality that literally hurled the Knicks out of contention in Game 7 of the 1994 NBA Finals, on a night when he shot 2-for-18 from the field, including 0-for-10 in the fourth quarter.
Ever the streaky and volume shooter, Starks is the Knicks’ all-time leader in three point field goals made with 982. In the 1994-95 season, Starks broke a single-season record for three-pointers made, making 217 in that year, on an unearthly 617 attempts (the record has since been bested by Dennis Scott, with 267 in 1995-96, and Stephen Curry, with 272 in 2012-13).
While many recall Starks’s abysmal shooting performance in Game 7 of the 1994 NBA Finals, many subsequently forget what he did in Game 6: with 27 points to his name and the Knicks down two in the game’s closing seconds, Starks hoisted a three (he was scorching 5-of-8 from behind the arc prior to the shot) that just met the tips of Hakeem Olajuwon’s outstretched fingers. Although his attempt at a game-winner went awry, Starks was mere centimeters away from potentially being a hero (he would have won a title for the Knicks for the first time in 21 years), but is instead remembered as the scapegoat of Game 7.
Regardless, Starks is often favored by many as the mark of perseverance that kept the Knicks chugging along for the better part of a decade.
2nd Team SF: Carmelo Anthony
- Stats from 2011 to 2015:
- 26.1 PPG, 7.0 RPG, 3.1 APG, 1.1 STL
With Amar’e Stoudemire the prize of the 2010 NBA free agency period, and forward Danilo Gallinari excelling as the Knicks’ second option on offense in the first half of the 2010-11 season, the Knicks were progressing wonderfully under head coach Mike D’Antoni’s high-octane offense, looking ahead to the summer of 2011, when they looked to rein in unrestricted free agent and Brooklyn-born Carmelo Anthony, who more than intimated a strong desire to play in New York.
Prior to the trade deadline, general manager Donnie Walsh was coerced by owner James Dolan to acquire Melo sooner, and the Knicks dealt nearly half the roster, including Gallinari, Wilson Chandler, Raymond Felton, Timofey Mozgov, and a bevy of draft picks, in order to heed Dolan’s urging. Melo, along with Nuggets teammate Chauncey Billups, would lead the Knicks back to the postseason, only to get swept by the third-seeded Boston Celtics despite two close, nail-biting games on the road that should have seen the Knicks up 2-0 in the series heading back home.
Under Carmelo, the Knicks won an Atlantic Division title in 2012-13 for the first time since their NBA Finals run in 1993-94, earning the Eastern Conference’s second seed. After defeating the Boston Celtics, the Knicks pushed the Indiana Pacers to six games in the Eastern Conference semifinals, but ended up losing the series 4-2.
In that same season, Melo won the Eastern Conference Player of the week award thrice, earned a spot as a starter on the All-Star team, set a franchise record of thirty-one straight games played while scoring 20+ points, and tied a franchise record of five successive games scoring 35+ points, set nearly thirty years before by Bernard King.
In short, with Carmelo signing a five-year extension in the 2014 offseason, the Oak Hill Academy product has Knick fans thinking championship, especially in light of his 2013 scoring title, four NBA All-Star selections (2011-2015), and a renewed vigor to buy into Phil Jackson’s plan of hiring Derek Fisher as coach, landing many key assets in the 2015 free agency period, and selecting Kristaps Porzingis with the fourth pick in this year’s draft, with hopes even of landing a marquee name (Kevin Durant?) in free agency in 2016.
Melo’s detractors proclaim him “selfish” and deem him an unworthy leader who does nothing in the way of making those around him better, and others bash him for his less-than-enthused play on the defensive end, but Carmelo’s tenure in New York has amounted to three playoff appearances and the first playoff series’ win since before the dreaded Isaiah Thomas era, not to mention a bundle of clutch performances and game-winning shots in New York, including a 62 point game at The Garden in January of 2014 against the Bobcats, a feat that bested Bernard King’s single game record.
Still in his prime, Melo has much to prove, and the jury is still out on what he can, and just might, accomplish in the playoffs for the Knicks.
2nd Team PF: Charles Oakley
- Stats from 1988 to 1998:
- 10.4 PPG, 10.0 RPG, 2.3 APG, 1.2 STL
If John Starks was the heart and soul of Pat Riley’s Knicks, and Patrick Ewing was their leader and warrior, then Charles Oakley was their backbone, their rock, their, for lack of better phrasing, oak foundation. Oakley, the big man from little known Virginia Union, made tougher and better players out of the likes of the late Anthony Mason and Charles Smith, and provided a toughness that brought the franchise to stratospheric heights in the ’90s, despite those teams never coming away with a championship.
As head coach Stan Albeck and Doug Collins’s enforcer in Chicago, Oakley gave the Bulls an edge that earned him a spot on the NBA All-Rookie Team in 1986. His tenacity in the Windy City would lend itself to the vision Pat Riley had for the Knicks when Oakley was acquired from Chicago for Bill Cartwright.
Despite his interior presence, Oakley had a soft touch and a nearly automatic mid-to-long range jumper that alleviated the pressure of going to Patrick Ewing or John Starks too often on offense.
In 1994, in the midst of a riveting NBA Finals run, Oakley would earn a nod on the NBA All-Star squad and a selection on the NBA All-Defensive First team, a feat he would similarly replicate by landing on the NBA All-Defensive Second Team in 1998, his last season in New York. Also during the ’94 run, Oakley played in 107 straight games, including the entire regular season and a 25-game playoff stretch, an all-time single season record and mark of Oakley’s tremendous durability.
With Chicago, Oakley would lead the league in rebounding in two consecutive years (1986-1987 and 1987-1988), and would later average double-digit rebounds in four of his ten seasons in New York.
Be it on defense or on the glass, Oakley, in the mold of Dave DeBusschere, embodied what it meant to be a roughneck, blue-collar Knickerbocker.
2nd Team C: Willis Reed
- Stats from 1964 to 1974:
- 18.7 PPG, 12.9 RPG, 1.8 APG, 0.6 STL, 1.1 BLK (Blocks were not an official stat until 1973-74 )
Many have tried, and failed, to make their own “Willis Reed moment,” including Paul Pierce in his notorious “Wheelchair Game” in the 2008 NBA Finals against the Lakers.
[su_youtube_advanced url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o80WOuUr5bs”]Heading into Game 7 of the 1970 NBA Finals against a formidable lineup featuring Wilt Chamberlain, Elgin Baylor, and Jerry West, Reed, who missed Game 6, a 135-113 blowout loss to the Lakers, suffered a severe thigh injury and torn muscle in his leg, and was unlikely to play, let alone suit up, for the deciding game of the series.
Los Angeles had the momentum despite playing before a raucous Garden crowd, with center Wilt Chamberlain having eviscerated the Knicks for 45 points in Game 6, and with Reed out, New York was at a major disadvantage without their star center to halt him.
Then, lo and behold, Reed stormed from the locker room out onto the causeway leading to the Garden floor, and Knick fans went absolutely ballistic.
[su_youtube_advanced url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SeITaf3e2Uo”]Reed hit two quick buckets, and subsequently left the floor for Walt Frazier to put on a show to the tune of 36 points and 19 assists. While it was Frazier’s performance that dismantled the Lakers, it was Reed’s heroics that set the tone for a relatively easy 113-99 win, amounting to the Knicks’ first ever title.
With the Knicks, Reed, who had his number 19 retired, constructed a resume worthy of an all-time legend. In his ten year career with New York, Reed was a two-time champion and NBA Finals MVP (1970, 1973), seven-time NBA All-Star (1965-1971), an All-NBA First Team selection (1970), four-time All-NBA Second Team center (1967-1969, 1971), NBA Rookie of the Year (1965), an NBA All-Defensive First Team selection (1970), and a member of the 50th Anniversary All-Time Team, becoming the first NBA player to win the All-Star Game, regular season, and NBA Finals MVPs in a single season (1970).
With a newly acquired Dave DeBusschere coming to New York from Detroit in the 1968-69 season, Reed moved from power forward to his natural position at center, and would go on to anchor a Knicks squad that would lead the league in team defense in five of the next six seasons, leading them to two titles in that span.
After his Knick days, Reed, eventually inducted to the Basketball Hall of Fame, would manufacture a championship contender with the New Jersey Nets, where, as their general manager, vice president of basketball operations, and senior vice president of basketball operations, he drafted the likes of Derrick Coleman and Kenny Anderson, acquired Drazen Petrovic, and built a franchise around the Jason Kidd acquisition that landed New Jersey two consecutive NBA Finals appearances in 2002 and 2003.
Unlike Michael Jordan, who is struggling to make the Charlotte Hornets relevant as their owner and chairman despite his stellar playing days, Reed has cultivated a championship-caliber pedigree as both player and executive, even coaching the Knicks and Nets for a spell.
Reserve F: Bill Bradley
- Stats from 1967 to 1977:
- 12.4 PPG, 3.2 RPG, 3.4 APG, 0.7 STL
In running a web search on Bill Bradley, amongst the principal items one will discover about him is that “Dollar Bill” was a three-term U.S. Senator from New Jersey, a man who ran a campaign that ultimately failed in the 2000 presidential election.
As a basketball player, Bradley was an all-time great collegian at Princeton University, where he set all-time Ivy League career records for total points (1,259), points per game average (29.83), free throws made (409), and free throws attempted (468), along with single-season records for total points (464) and points per game average (33.14) in 1964, and most free throws made (153) out of 170 attempts, good for a sterling 90.0% rate, in 1962-1963.
Coined “the white Oscar Robertson” in his college days after taking the Princeton Tigers to the Final Four in a season, 1964-1965, when he beat future teammate Cazzie Russell in a holiday tournament at Madison Square Garden, Bradley went on to lengthen a Hall of Fame career as a two-time NBA champion (1970, 1973) and one-time NBA All-Star (1973) as a starting small forward for the Knicks, having his number 24 later retired by the team.
A Rhodes scholar and politician by trade, Bill Bradley was a solid member of the Knicks who was integral in pushing Holzman’s club to a higher stature in the ’70s.
Reserve G: Allan Houston
- Stats from 1996 to 2005:
- 18.5 PPG, 3.1 RPG, 2.4 APG, 0.7 STL
A three-point marksman by way of Tennessee in college and Detroit in the pros, Allan Houston ended his career with a sizzling .402 mark from downtown, once leading the league in free throw percentage (.919) with the Knicks in 2002-03, four years after stunning the NBA world by leading an 8-seed all the way to the NBA Finals.
With his runner in the lane in the closing moments of Game 5 of a first round series against the Miami Heat in the 1999 NBA Playoffs, Houston made New York the second team in NBA history to defeat a 1-seed (seasons before, Dikembe Mutombo’s Nuggets upset the Seattle Supersonics).
A two-time NBA All-Star, Houston made headlines, albeit infamously, by signing a maximum extension, the Knicks’ first ever $100 million contract, in 2001, completely falling apart by the deal’s third year, when Houston averaged a paltry 11.9 points per game (in a mere twenty games), the lowest average in his New York tenure. Knee injuries forced him to retire, giving way to the “Allan Houston Rule,” by which franchises were granted “a one-time option to release a player without his contract counting against the luxury threshold regardless of how long or how rich the contract was,” according to Wikipedia and USA Today.
The “rule” is now known in NBA circles as the “amnesty clause,” which the Knicks used during Houston’s career to release Jerome Williams and would later use to release Chauncey Billups, under a different collective bargaining agreement, to eventually acquire center Tyson Chandler, who would become the NBA Defensive Player of the Year during his time in New York.
At present, Houston is assistant to the general manager with the Knicks, and general manager of the Westchester Knicks, the big club’s developmental team, which has groomed the likes of Cleanthony Early, who will likely play a larger role with New York in 2015-2016.
Head Coach: Red Holzman
- Stats from 1967 to 1982 (14 Seasons as Coach):
- 613 – 484 W/L Record, .559 Win. % (Regular Season) / .557 Win. % (Postseason), 2X NBA Champion, 3X Eastern Conference Champion
While Pat Riley and Jeff Van Gundy lead a revival at The Garden as Knicks head coaches in the 1990s, the pair was merely mimicking a blueprint put into fruition decades before by Red Holzman, a relative failure with the now defunct Milwaukee/St. Louis Hawks, who, during Holzman’s time, never finished above .500 despite leading them to the postseason once.
Similar to Joe Torre coming to the New York Yankees after middling seasons as manager of the Atlanta Braves and the St. Louis Cardinals to lead the Bombers to glory four times in the late ’90s and early ’00s, Holzman came to the Knicks with very few expectations, but went on a seven-year run (he joined the Knicks midway through the 1967-1968 campaign) in which the Knicks were 348-189, winning games at a .646 clip, with two NBA championships and a 60-win season to his credit.
Many NBA acolytes of today gush over head coach Gregg Popovich’s ability to turn the San Antonio Spurs into an offensive juggernaut predicated on crisp passing and selfless team play, but it was Red Holzman who preached the same fundamentals decades earlier.
Just as Popovich utilized this style of play to pick apart a superstar roster like the 2013-2014 Miami Heat (and nearly did it in successive years, if not for a late miracle scoring run capped off by a wild Ray Allen three in the waning seconds of Game 6 of the 2013 NBA Finals), Holzman did the same, twice to the Los Angeles Lakers, lead by Wilt Chamberlain, Elgin Baylor, and Jerry West in 1970 and Chamberlain and West in 1973.
Holzman’s Knicks, lead by a slew of Hall of Famers and All-Stars both on this list (Reed, Frazier, Monroe, DeBusschere, and Bradley) and not on this list (Cazzie Russell, Dick Barnett, and Jerry Lucas), moved to a hardwood symphony rooted in phrases like “Move the ball,” and “Find the open man,” doing so with the style and grace instilled in them by the late, legendary Hall of Fame coach from Brooklyn, who won the NBA Coach of the Year in his finest season (1970), when the Knicks began 23-1, the best start in NBA history, and won a then-record 18 games straight en route to a title earned in grit, hard work, and flawless team play for which Holzman is still lauded.