Knicks Shouldn't Let Salary Determine Playing Time

When it comes to the Knicks, money matters in all the wrong ways.

The Knicks have mired themselves in a decade-long run of mediocrity by spending major money for minor talent. Now as they prepare to open the season tomorrow night in Cleveland, they are about to make a parallel mistake in their lineup choices.

Barring any last minute injuries, the Knicks are going to send out center Eddy Curry, forwards Zack Randolph and Quentin Richardson, and guards Stephon Marbury and Jamal Crawford to the floor of the Quickens Loans Arena for opening tip-off against the Cavaliers. Not coincidentally, those five are among the highest paid Knicks. Stephon will earn $20 million this season, Randolph gets $13.3 million, Curry makes $8.9 million, Richardson and Crawford will add about $8 million to each of their bank accounts this season.

While this is almost certainly the worst return on an investment for a starting lineup in the NBA (for contrast, the champion San Antonio Spurs spend about $48 million for their starting five), there's another issue: This isn't the best use of talent on the Knicks roster.

At the risk of laboring the obvious, starting lineups require a solid mix of skills such as shooting, ball-handling, rebounding, and defense. Team president Isiah Thomas has done an excellent job at filling out the edges of the Knicks' lineup with promising players like forwards David Lee, Renaldo Balkman, and Wilson Chandler, who all contribute without needing the ball in their hands. Unfortunately, coach Thomas isn't going to use them in a configuration that would benefit the team.

The current starting lineup is full of players who need the ball in their hands to thrive, and last time I checked, there's only one ball in play. All preseason one of the biggest questions surrounding the Knicks has been whether Randolph and Curry can coexist on the floor since they are both interior players who use a lot of possessions. The real question should have been: why do they have to? The Knicks have a deep roster with talent deserving of nightly burn all the way out to their 10th and 11th men. Why not use them? As presently constructed, the Knicks' rotation will consist of a starting five that struggles to find enough shots for everyone involved and a second unit full of players who hustle and work hard and get shots off the opportunities they create on rebounds, and from turnovers. Why not mix and match?

I think the Knicks should start Lee, Randolph, Balkman (when he's healthy again), Richardson, and Marbury, and they should split time with a second unit featuring Curry, Chandler, Crawford, Nate Robinson, and Jared Jeffries. The idea is that none of the Knicks big men are first-rate shutdown defenders, but the team has several perimeter defenders. Use them. All the players on this second unit except Curry rebound well for their size. I'm even willing to go deeper than 10 men a night; forward Malik Rose, center Randolph Morris, and guards Fred Jones and Mardy Collins shouldn't rot at the end of the bench.

The Knicks depth is their greatest strength so they should use it. Fans of at least two-thirds of the NBA teams would — if they didn't just immediately regard the Knicks as some sort of bad joke — trade their bench guys for the players on the pine at Madison Square Garden. It's the Knicks' starting five and their paychecks that elicit giggles around the league. There is precedent for this strategy too. Four years ago under former Knick coach Hubie Brown, the Memphis Grizzlies went to a 10 man rotation and improved from 28–54 to 50–32.

The other issue is feasibility. Players accustomed to starting might pout if their privilege of being on the floor at opening tip was taken away. My only response to that is I don't care. The Knicks are in an urgent situation and need to realize it. Since 2001, the team has been to the playoffs once — a four game thumping by New Jersey three years ago. They have the talent to get there again but not if they don't maximize every single asset at their disposal.

Last season, before injuries rendered playoff contention futile, the Knicks lost one game after another where their starting lineup put them in an early hole, their reserves would rally, the starters would return and deepen the hole, and a furious fourth quarter comeback would fall short. The problem was a failure on the starting lineup to play tight defense. Randolph's arrival isn't going to fix that problem because his skill set, a soft touch but weak on defense, too closely duplicates Curry's.

I think the Knicks have the talent to make the playoffs, but I'm very pessimistic about the long-term outlook. The teams that most prognosticators place behind the New Yorkers, Charlotte, Atlanta, and Philadelphia, will be improving at a faster rate than the Knicks. By this time next year, the bottom of the Eastern Conference playoff bracket could be a very crowded field.

The Knicks can make the playoffs this season, but not if playing time is allotted by paycheck size.

mjohnson@nysun.com