Valiant Losses? Here's Why the Knicks Shouldn't Even Be Playing

By Allen Barra Wed., Apr. 20 2011 at 5:44 PM

Let's put the Knicks' postseason performance so far into perspective. Yes, Melo's dazzling performance in Tuesday's night game -- not just the 4 points but the 17 rebounds and six assists, not to mention the 13 points in a row -- was the most memorable Knicks night in several years. And yes, the team displayed a lot of fortitude on consecutive nights against a vastly superior Boston team.

But every NBA postseason has at least one or more such story, and they tend to obscure the larger story: the underdog really didn't deserve to be in the playoffs at all.

Perhaps that's a subjective judgment, but let's compare pro basketball's playoff season with that of baseball. NBA B-ball is, by its nature, much more unbalanced than MLB baseball. No team in baseball last year finished with a won-lost percentage as high as .600 (the Phillies were the highest at .599) and only one other team was as high as .593 (the Tampa Bay Rays).

In the 2010-2011 NBA season nine teams finished at .600 or higher, and three finished above .700: the Chicago Bulls (.756), San Antonio Spurs (.744), and the Miami Heat (.707).

Let's look at it yet another way: baseball, with 30 teams, has eight playoff slots while the NBA, also with 30 teams, has 16. You have to be really, really crappy not to make the playoffs in pro basketball; the Knicks, with a record of 42-40 for a W-L of .512%, made the cut. Five baseball teams last season with a W-L of .512% or better did not.

Let's look at it still another way. The Indiana Pacers, 37-45 for .451%, made the playoffs. If that was the criteria in baseball, 23 of 30 teams would be making postseason appearances. And one of them, finishing just four games under .500 last season, would have been ... the New York Mets.

Speaking of which, we'll end with this segment from Norm MacDonald's funny new show...

Sports Show with Norm Macdonald
Tags: Sports Show,Norm Macdonald,#SportsShow

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knicksforlyfe

Allen Barra, the first thing you need to fix in your artical is CArmelo scored 42 points , not 4 points......

J.C.

What is this garbage?

ROMAN CERANT

Who is this idiot? Why is he writing about basketball? Since he knows so much about baseball. You should stick to writing about baseball, Based on this article it is clear you dont have a clue about basketball.

Buckie05

It was 42 points, not 4. Don't you do any spell-checking? You're an idiot who doesn't understand basketball. It's an 82 game marathon season that pounds the players. Being .500 is nothing to be ashamed of, especially for a young team such as the Knicks. It's not like baseball which is just hours of standing around punctuated by random moments of excitement.

The Lion

I’m not even a Knicks fan, but this may be the stupidest article this hack has ever written. Under Barra’s dumbass criteria (a lot of teams make the NBA playoffs.........gee, what a revelation) they shouldn’t have made the playoffs, but they DID, and while they won’t win this series, they have been competitive and have set themselves up for a good future with the Carmelo and Stoudemire (unless they bring Isaiah back to fuck things up).

Victor

Gay village voice article doesn't even break down the game. Just compares apples and oranges. Speaking of which, Orange and Blue of www.knicksfanaticsblog.com can write a post game analysis, not some hipster tripe!