1986-‘00 Knicks: Replace Ewing w/ Shaq

[Matt15]

How many titles would the Knicks win with Shaq replacing Ewing?

86 Knicks-92 Shaq
87 Knicks-93 Shaq
88 Knicks-94 Shaq
89 Knicks-95 Shaq
90 Knicks-96 Shaq
91 Knicks-97 Shaq
92 Knicks-98 Shaq
93 Knicks-99 Shaq
94 Knicks-00 Shaq
95 Knicks-01 Shaq
96 Knicks-02 Shaq
97 Knicks-03 Shaq
98 Knicks-04 Shaq
99 Knicks-05 Shaq
00 Knicks-06 Shaq

[Tomtolbert]

You should have drawn out the options for over 2.

[One_and_Done]

3+. Ewing had tonnes of help, and is grossly inferior to Shaq.

[70sFan]

3+. Ewing had tonnes of help, and is grossly inferior to Shaq.

When exactly?

[One_and_Done]

3+. Ewing had tonnes of help, and is grossly inferior to Shaq.

When exactly?

Most of those years?

[70sFan]

3+. Ewing had tonnes of help, and is grossly inferior to Shaq.

When exactly?

Most of those years?

Compared to Shaq? That's laughable opinion...

[One_and_Done]

When exactly?

Most of those years?

Compared to Shaq? That's laughable opinion...

I'm talking in an objective sense. The years don't align so it's hardly a year by year comparison to Shaq.

[RCM88x]

94 & 95 are very high chance, thinking >90%
90, 92-93 & 99 are decent chance, maybe >30%
Other years they're certainly a borderline contender but probably never have a super high chance. I'd put the over/under at like 2.5

[70sFan]

Most of those years?

Compared to Shaq? That's laughable opinion...

I'm talking in an objective sense. The years don't align so it's hardly a year by year comparison to Shaq.

Can you tell me, in objective sense, when did Ewing had a legitimate strong 2nd option? Do you think Ewing wasn't forced to be clearly the main guy on both ends of the floor for a decade?

[OriAr]

I assume they at least win 94, no chance in hell Shaq goes for 18 ppg and 36% from the field like Ewing did in real life.
They'd have had a good chance in 95 and 93 as well... Maybe they have a shot at 98, they'd have been severely outmatch against the Spurs in 99 and the Knicks were too old in 00 anyway.

[One_and_Done]

Compared to Shaq? That's laughable opinion...

I'm talking in an objective sense. The years don't align so it's hardly a year by year comparison to Shaq.

Can you tell me, in objective sense, when did Ewing had a legitimate strong 2nd option? Do you think Ewing wasn't forced to be clearly the main guy on both ends of the floor for a decade?

1) Shaq doesn't need one as much as Ewing does, because he's Shaq.
2) Starks, Xman, G.Wilkins, young M.Jax, LJ, Houston & Spree will be plenty. Even Mason showed himself to be a solid scorer when iven minutes, it's just alot of these teams were deep and played a slow pace, so their offence looks worse than it was.

I think you're looking at the support casts and not seeing a Wade or Kobe type scorer. No, there isn't one of those, but you didn't need one of them back then. The team was still drippimg with talent, and with Shaq as the new offensive fulcrum they should excel.

It's notable that Shaq would be in his prime basically every year, so those late 90s Knicks who made the finals without Ewing now add Shaq.

I

[70sFan]

1) Shaq doesn't need one as much as Ewing does, because he's Shaq.

That's true.

2) Starks, Xman, G.Wilkins, young M.Jax, LJ, Houston & Spree will be plenty. Even Mason showed himself to be a solid scorer when iven minutes, it's just alot of these teams were deep and played a slow pace, so their offence looks worse than it was.

So, LJ and Houston came to NY in 1997, Sprewell in 1999. We can exclude them from prime Ewing talks.

That leaves us with Starks, Xman, Wilkins and Jackson. Which one of them was a good offensive player? Starks was nothing special, Jackson was solid but he was there only up to 1992, Wilkins wasn't a good offensive player at all. I actually agree that Mason was a quite good offensive player, but it's nothing compared to what Shaq (or most top 10 players) played with.

I think you're looking at the support casts and not seeing a Wade or Kobe type scorer. No, there isn't one of those, but you didn't need one of them back then. The team was still drippimg with talent, and with Shaq as the new offensive fulcrum they should excel.

No, it's just you believing that Starks and Mason is a great offensive supporting cast. Look at 1995 Magic alone and they had 2 or maybe even 3 better second options on offense than that.

Knicks offense relied heavily on Ewing out of necessity, not because he was born to be the first option. Ewing would never be a 1st option on a stacked team. Ewing's teams were well coached and deep enough to be contenders, but calling them stacked (especially in context of this thread) is just silly.

It's notable that Shaq would be in his prime basically every year, so those late 90s Knicks who made the finals without Ewing now add Shaq.

But you said it about most of the years, not only the late 1990s.

[One_and_Done]

There are other types of talent than offensive talent. Shaq has all the talent he needs to rack up 3+ titles.

[70sFan]

There are other types of talent than offensive talent. Shaq has all the talent he needs to rack up 3+ titles.

That doesn't answer any of the points I provided.

In the only long break Ewing had in 1998, the Knicks went without him 28-28 and that's one of the most talented team of his career, while he was past his prime. 1990-95 teams were solid and well coached, calling them stacked is ridiculous.

Is Ewing your new Kobe?

[One_and_Done]

If you read my earlier post you will see I've already answered them. Focusing on the Knicks underachieving for a stretch of games in 98, and not them making the finals without him the following year, is selective viewing.

[70sFan]

If you read my earlier post you will see I've already answered them. Focusing on the Knicks underachieving for a stretch of games in 98, and not them making the finals without him the following year, is selective viewing.

They actually won 4 playoff games without Ewing in 1999, I wouldn't call that "making finals without him".

I read your previous post, it has no explanation outside of calling Gerald Wilkins a good offensive player.

[Owly]

I'm talking in an objective sense. The years don't align so it's hardly a year by year comparison to Shaq.

Can you tell me, in objective sense, when did Ewing had a legitimate strong 2nd option? Do you think Ewing wasn't forced to be clearly the main guy on both ends of the floor for a decade?

1) Shaq doesn't need one as much as Ewing does, because he's Shaq.
2) Starks, Xman, G.Wilkins, young M.Jax, LJ, Houston & Spree will be plenty. Even Mason showed himself to be a solid scorer when iven minutes, it's just alot of these teams were deep and played a slow pace, so their offence looks worse than it was.

I think you're looking at the support casts and not seeing a Wade or Kobe type scorer. No, there isn't one of those, but you didn't need one of them back then. The team was still drippimg with talent, and with Shaq as the new offensive fulcrum they should excel.

It's notable that Shaq would be in his prime basically every year, so those late 90s Knicks who made the finals without Ewing now add Shaq.

I

I think I'm higher than some around here on some of the Knicks "casts".

It's not all on a second option and there were a lot of highly regarded defenders on the mid 90s teams (though even if his impact footprint is clearly 3rd behind Robinson and Olajuwon among that center trio ... the Knicks were losing when he went to the bench ... okay the backup centers weren't great ... granting some didn't love his foul rate, called him a paratrooper for getting faked too easy ... he does seem to be the centerpiece of that D) ... but yeah

"young M Jax" ... good offensive player ... often. But inconsistent (NY crowd got on him, think some called him Bench-Mark ... some worse). Not a good defender [edit here for typo]. Liked to hold on to the ball a bit, back people down so not a great fit in that regard. NY era Jackson a spotty shooter, not a great fit in that regard. Not really a second option in so far as that is important.

Wilkins by reputation or by boxscore aggregates was never more than ordinary.

McDaniel is one year of slightly inefficient scoring at a little above average volume, not a lot else.

LJ is past is prime by the time he arrives - maybe you could argue he didn't fit, maybe it was injuries catching up, getting worse (he had adapted his game to deal with less explosiveness at the back end of his Charlotte run).

Houston is a great shooter and thus perhaps a nice fit. Alas also a bit Jeff Malone (update to take and make some more threes) ... pure shot but most likes the least valuable shot ... long twos. So efficiency tends to be more "above average" than notable though varying year to year. Doesn't do much else.

Starks ... sparkplug. Streaky. On a great team you'd love him off the bench. Good hustle. Probably not a second option on a good offense. Capable of aggressiveness and some playmaking. Not bad.

"those late 90s Knicks who made the finals without Ewing now add Shaq."
The late 90s team made the finals by ... what I'd probably call luck. They win two series where they only slightly outscore their opponents, they're much weaker in the RS. Camby is throwing up a 24.8PER, .280 WS/48, 6.8 BPM run that ... probably doesn't happen if you run it back. Now with Shaq they should get a better seed etc but ... this wasn't an automatic trip to the finals. And yes IRL that could help people overrate Ewing (except people got all "Ewing theory" ... [cf playoff plus minus ... he missed SA so not exactly fair but at the same time ... he wasn't exactly holding them back]). This isn't, running it back, a great opportunity.


"Tonnes of help" in general, then, seems like hyperbole at best.

[One_and_Done]

There's other sorts of talent than offensive talent. With Shaq there they have less need of offensive talent than with Ewing. Pretty straight forward. Those guys I listed were enough. Who cares if they went 500 for 56 games in 98 without Ewing? The Lakers went 135-137 with Kobe from 99-07 in games Shaq missed.

[70sFan]

Shaq basically never played with worse (or comparable) offensive help to 1994 Knicks except his rookie year (and maybe 2nd year). Yes, I am aware that Knicks were good defensively. Ewing supporting cast was still nowhere near what Shaq played with.

[One_and_Done]

If true, and I don't grant it is, it might be relevant... if the years in question overlapped. They didn't. The competition Ewing faced each year from 88-00 was very different to what Shaq faced from 93-05.