From New York Knicks owner James Dolan's perspective, it was a matter of simple addition. Three stars had aligned in Boston just three years earlier and brought another title to a storied franchise, and Dolan saw a similar model developing in Miami.
In New York, where everything must be done just like it is everywhere else, only better, the Knicks went out and got their three stars.
The result has not been what Dolan and the Knicks envisioned. As the Knicks prepare to visit Boston on Friday, it could be argued that Stoudemire and Anthony are both having the worst seasons of their careers. Not surprisingly, the Knicks are in the middle of the pack in an underwhelming Atlantic Division.
The ineffectivness is obvious whether one judges teams based on watching them play or by sifting through a spreadsheet. It's no small feat to get old-school scouts and hipster stat geeks to agree on anything, so at least the Knicks can say they are bringing people together off the court.
On the court, the Knicks couldn't be further apart. They are disjointed offensively, and all the movement usually associated with a Mike D'Antoni offense screeches to a halt the moment Anthony touches the ball. Adding a point guard, whether by bringing back a healthy Baron Davis or acquiring the soon-to-be 38-year-old Steve Nash, by itself is not going to cure that. Few opinions on the Knicks are as frustratingly wrong as the often-repeated line that Anthony and Stoudemire both "need the basketball in their hands" to be effective. Anyone who watched Stoudemire operate for eight years in Phoenix with Nash knows that's a bunch of bunk.
Stoudemire was possibly the best pick-and-roll big man since Karl Malone, and his recent pleadings to the media that "the system works" suggest exactly which of the Knicks' stars is breaking out of the system and costing the Knicks victories.
The objective evidence is just as definitive as the subjective. The Knicks' most effective five-man units are ones that involve either Stoudemire or Anthony, but never both. The Knicks' most-used unit of Chandler, Stoudemire, Anthony, Landry Fields and Iman Shumpert has an overall rating of 2.30, according to the statistics website Basketball Value, which puts them right in line with the lowly Pistons' unit of Greg Monroe, Jonas Jerebko, Tayshaun Prince, Ben Gordon and Rodney Stuckey at 2.32.
The discrepancies between the 2011-12 Knicks and the 2007-08 Celtics reinforce the fact that stockpiling stars does not make a championship automatic.
That Anthony has joined an All-Star like Stoudemire yet continued to attempt almost 20 shots per game, roughly the same amount he put up in Denver, says just about all that needs to be said about Anthony and this Knicks experiment. In their first season together, each member of the Celtics' All-Star trio took fewer shots per game, and Paul Pierce showed an uptick in assists. For Ray Allen, the drop from 21 field goal attempts per game to 13 attempts per game directly contributed to his scoring average plummeting from 26.4 points to 17.4 points. There was also that small matter of the ring he got to put on his finger, of course.
These Knicks — or, at least, Anthony — don't seem willing to make such sacrifices. If anything, Anthony seems to believe the Knicks' best chance at winning is for him to play one-on-one in isolation, and the Knicks' record shows just how wrong he is.
Some of the greatest moments of the Celtics' current era involved role players like Leon Powe, Glen Davis, Eddie House and James Posey. Rajon Rondo became an All-Star despite — or maybe because of — the presence of three All-Stars. It is difficult to imagine Toney Douglas doing the same alongside Anthony, Stoudemire and Chandler, although it should be noted that Raymond Felton, Wilson Chandler and Fields made huge strides flanking Stoudemire last season.
Kevin Garnett, Pierce and Allen were the rare breed of stars at just the right time in their careers to embrace a team concept. The fact that all three were potential Hall of Famers was collateral. Pushing their mid-30s, that group remains far more effective than a Knicks group in its prime, both by the eye test and the statistical measures. The psychology that carried the Celtics to the championship in 2008 can't easily be replicated, no matter how many fat contracts a team hands out.
