Yes, teams like the San Antonio Spurs, or Boston Celtics, or Dallas Mavericks in 2011 have relied on their veteran players to carry them home, but Woodson almost seemed to dismiss the importance of youth. For instance, the reigning champions, the Miami Heat, were carried by their Big 3 who, except for Dwyane Wade (30), are below 30-years old. Their Finals opponents, the Oklahoma City Thunder, hardly have rotation players sniffing 30 years of age.

In his Knicks Fix last week, Alan Hahn outlined the average ages of NBA championship teams since 2007, all of which were under 30-years old. With the additions of players like Marcus Camby, Jason Kidd, Kurt Thomas, and Pablo Prigioni, the average of the Knicks’ roster is 31-years old. That’s not to say that they are too old to contend, but their depth is reliant upon some players with a lot of miles on their legs.

The Knicks’ starting lineup is not particularly old – Raymond Felton is 28, J.R. Smith is 26, Carmelo Anthony, 27, Amar’e Stoudemire, 29, and Tyson Chandler, 29 – but their bench depth will rely on the health of some pretty old players. If a member of the Knicks’ starting lineup were to get hurt (especially at point guard or upfront), the Knicks could find themselves in a tight spot playing heavy minutes to some older veterans.

Furthermore, in an NBA that is evolving more and more into a position-less and a more open game, the Knicks’ veteran signings have made them slower and far less versatile with very players on their roster able to play outside of their given roles. Whereas the Miami Heat may very well run out a lineup this year featuring entirely wing players – Wade, LeBron James, Ray Allen, Chris Bosh, and Rashard Lewis – the Knicks may not have the versatility to match-up with such a lineup.

(And of course, it is fair to compare the Knicks with the Heat seeing as how these Knicks were built to take down those Miami foes).

So, have the Knicks gotten too old this offseason? We certainly can’t say definitively until the season gets underway, but they have taken an old-school approach to the game that may turn out to be out-of-date with the new-school NBA.

Lebron led them to the promise land! They had a little help along the way of course: Derrick Rose tore his ACL, Iman Shumpert tore his ACL, Amar’e slashed his hand, Ray Allen was injured, The Spurs choked against The Thunder, and The Thunder choked against them. Who knows what would have happened if none of those convenient mishaps didn’t occur.

If you ask me The Heat were the third best team in the league last season. The Bulls were number 1 when Rose was fully healthy, and The Spurs were number 2. OKC was only fourth due to their lack of experience, which ultimately led to their demise. A little luck is needed once in a while right?

Don’t get me wrong, The Heat are immensely talented. Lebron alone will keep a team in the playoffs probably until he retires, and if you add Wade and Bosh into the mix you get a deep playoff run year after year. They most likely can make the Finals again sometime in the next few years, but it won’t be as easy as this time around. Next year they will have to face the healthy and improved Bulls, Clippers, Thunder, and maybe our own New York Knicks.

The Knicks are set to have a big year if they play their cards right. The arbitrator ruled in favor of players retaining their bird rights after being waived, so Lin and Novak will be returning to the team next season barring a successful appeal by the league. That means that the Knicks can add quality talent if they choose wisely and make a good investment. Newly minted head coach Mike Woodson impressed last season, and he sent home some of the players with missions on how to improve. Amar’e should come back with new low-post moves, Tyson should be more of an offensive weapon, and ‘Melo should be a better passer.

Who knows if any of those things will actually be successful, but if they create a perfect storm this could turn out very well. I don’t want to sound overly optimistic, but the Knicks v.s. Heat episode II may have very different results than the first one.

That does not mean we are better than The Heat, or even at their level. What it means is that we can be competitive against some of the best teams in the league. That’s what so great about the NBA playoffs, anything can happen as long as you stay in the game.

The Heat have their work cut out for them if they want to win another championship. Dwyane Wade is 30 and injury prone. As great as he is, he might not have 3 or 4 more years of excellence in his body. Bosh was not consistently efficient this season, and if he cannot reproduce his playoff success regularly he doesn’t make a huge impact. They have a decent supporting cast, but Chalmers is due for a contract upgrade sooner or later, Battier is not getting younger, and the rest of the lebron-ettes can be easily replaced and exchanged.

The Knicks may not be the only thing stopping The Heat, but if one thing is for sure, it is that The Heat need a lot of help from the NBA gods if they plan on winning not 1, not 2, not 3, not 4, not 5, not 6, not 7 championships.

I wonder what Latrell Sprewell is doing right about now? let’s hope he is watching this video and smiling. Also, hopefully he can feed his family

Kobe Bryant and Derek Fisher celebrate after a game that featured surprising turns and performances from beginning to end. (Source: Yardbarker.com)

Yesterday I wrote how if Game 7 of the NBA Finals between the Los Angeles Lakers and Boston Celticsfollowed suit with the rest of the series, there would be more drama before the game than during it.  How happily wrong I was.  The game had surprising twists plus more storylines than a Robert Altman film.  If I didn’t know better, I’d’ve thought this game was shown on cable rather than ABC, ‘cuz TNT Knows Drama (oh wait, didn’t they change their tagline to the even lamer “TNT – Very Funny?”).  There also still was some post-game suspense (which I’ll get to in the end). So now, in honor of the Lakers winning their 16th title, we’ll go over the 16 surprising tales this game created, starting out with the 12 stories that played out duringthe game:

1. The Redemption Of Ron Artest

The 2010 Laker team had one difference from the 2009 team: they swapped Ron Artest for Trevor Ariza.  At the beginning of the year Artest stated that if the Lakers didn’t win again this year that the blame should fall on him.  It was a bold, perhaps fair statement to make.  With his horrendous shooting throughout much of the playoffs and into the Finals, LA fans had the bullseye painted and everything.  However, with Kobe and Pau struggling in the first half (okay, hell, the whole game), his scoring kept the team in the game.  Add to it that he held Paul Pierce to 5-of-15 shooting and this poor maligned, albeit slightly crazy guy, perhaps can finally move on from his Malice At The Palace rep.

To read the rest of my post, go to the main FanSided page here.

After scouring the internet, I was amazed at the dearth of material on Dick McGuire.  Here was one of the greats, and the only footage I could find of him playing bball was on MSG’s memorial for him.  In an age where every moment is recorded of people who are famous simply for being famous (like Paris Hilton or Jon&Kate), it’s sad that the exploits of a true pioneer will likely fade away into nothingness eventually.  How many websites do we need devoted to David Hasselhoff?  It’s up to us to keep our history alive.  How many great films, great books, great songs have been lost?  Someone recently said to me that the reason most books from before 1900 haven’t stood the test of time is because they weren’t that great.  I have a hard time believing that.  Yes, they may not have been Shakespeare, but that doesn’t mean they didn’t have books that if they came out today would be considered one of the top 50 books of the year.  It’s also not just about whether things from the past are as “good” as things in the present, it’s about understanding how things have evolved.

For instance, one silent film which was considered a shocker at the time it came out was the original “The Great Train Robbery.”  If you watch it today, well, probably the recent “Taking Of Pelham One Two Three” is more suspenseful to our modern sensibilities.  However, the key to appreciating “The Great Train Robbery” is understanding why it was a shocker.  It wasn’t about the plot.  It was about a shot that they showed at the very beginning, and then the exact same shot shown at the very end.  It’s completely unremarkable to you and me.  It’s just a guy looking at us (ie.the camera) and shooting his gun.  The thing is that up until that point, they’d never had a person look right at the camera before, so when he shot that gun, the audience was literally instinctively afraid that he was shooting at them.  They ducked to the side.  In a sense, it was to them what the first 3-D films were to our times.  That’s incredible.

Similarly, while doing a bit of research on McGuire, naturally a lot of things came up about his contemporary dribbling maestro, Bob Cousy.  There’s an anecdote on him that reminds me of Michael Jordan’s famous improvised shot against the Lakers.  The one where he went up in the air for a right-handed lay-in, then seeing Sam Perkins preparing to block it, mid-air MJ switched the ball to his left hand and flipped it in.  Here’s the description of Cousy in a 1949 college game from an old Sports Illustrated article:

(more…)