Two is Better than One

This week, we're taking a look at the best - and most memorable - duos in Knicks history.

Good morning! Hope everyone is enjoying the dog days of summer. As I noted last week, I’m in the midst of moving, but don’t for a second think that’ll interrupt the fun and games here. There will still be four newsletter this week, although I’m not sure at the moment which days those letters will fall on. Depends on when I can take a break from packing way more stuff than I realized we had. Funny how that always happens.

Anyway, if you’re reading this and aren’t a full subscriber but want to stay knee-deep in Knicks & NBA content all summer long, there’s no better time to rectify that:

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Welcome to the offseason.

I know, I know…the offseason officially started six weeks ago, when the Nuggets won their first NBA title, and it unofficially started about two weeks ago, when we got the official numbers on most of the contracts that were signed in free agency. But it feels like we’ve been in a bit of a holding pattern since then, wondering if the other shoe was going to drop in either the Dame or Harden fiascos.

Neither has, so with August now very much in sight, I’m calling it: the NBA dead zone is here. As a result, for the next two months, this newsletter will transform into a bit of a free-for-all as it has the last few summers.

You know the drill…NBA history, quirky deep dives, out of the box “Ask Macri’s”…whatever your pleasure, I’m game. On that note, PLEASE keep the questions rolling into KnicksFilmSchool@gmail.com.

Today, I’m going to start off a week-long trip down the Knicks history rabbit hole. My inspiration for this week’s newsletters was the most recent set of KFS Patreon episodes, in which Andrew Claudio and I drafted the best NBA duos in each conference (and for those wondering, Andrew got first pick in the East and went with Jimmy and Bam, while I got first pick in the West and took Jokic and Murray). The convo for both conferences was a lot of fun, and you can check out both by subscribing here.

Anyway, our little exercise got me thinking: after Jalen Brunson and Julius Randle just had one of the better seasons by a pair of Knicks teammates, where does their partnership rank in the annals of franchise history? Might as well try to find out.

As such, over the next several days, I’ll be ranking the Top 10 Duos in Knicks History, plus honorable mentions. As is always the case with exercises like this, we need some ground rules:

• I was originally going to rank individual seasons by Knick duos, but I quickly ran into some problems. For one, I wasn’t around for the vast majority of Knicks history, so it felt disingenuous to try and parse out when a pair of players were truly at their best. Just as importantly, longevity should matter. At the same time, I wanted to give pairings like Brunson and Randle a real chance to make the list, so for this exercise at least, the peak of a partnership will matter a lot. For that reason, I’ll include a bullet point for each duo on what I consider to be their best season.

• Single players can appear more than once, but no more than times. This felt like the fairest way to ensure that the greatest Knicks ever received the representation they deserved while also preventing them from dominating the list.

• The other way I tried to make sure individual greatness didn’t overshadow the point of the exercise: the duos have to be genuine duos. For example, for a year and a half in the 80’s, Bernard King basically owned basketball before tearing his ACL. You could make the argument that King was so good that him and the towel boy could make this list, but if he didn’t have a true running mate, his name won’t appear below.

• It should go without saying that team success matters. The Knicks have been putrid for much of their history, and many of their seasons have been filled with empty calorie stats. Not all the pairings on the list were a part of successful teams, but if they were, it helped their case immensely.

• In order to qualify for the top 10, the duo had to be (at least arguably) the two best players on the team for one full season; aka, the Bill Bradley rule. Bradley is a Hall-of-Famer and deservingly so, but he was never one of the two best Knicks on those title teams. Thus, I won’t be trying to shoehorn him (or anyone else who fits this description) onto the list, even though he was awesome.

• One more qualifier: only a player’s accomplishments as a Knick count.

OK, enough preamble. Let’s get going.

10. Bill Cartwright & Michael Ray Richardson, 1979-82

• Combined Win Shares as teammates: 43.1

• Best Season: 1980-81 - led the Knicks to 50 wins; lost in 1st round; Richardson got MVP votes, made All-Star and 1st Team All-Defense; Cartwright top-20 in scoring

These two had three seasons together as Knicks, and they started off with a bang.

After getting picked 4th overall in the 1978 draft, Richardson followed up an underwhelming rookie campaign with an All-Star berth the following season - one in which he led the NBA in both steals and assists per game. Joining him on the All-Star team was Cartwright, who was taken 3rd overall in 1979 and became one of the few players in league history to make the All-Star team as a rookie and never again after that.

He still produced though, leading the 50-win Knicks in scoring the following season. Richardson made the All-Star team again, but New York bowed out of the playoffs in unceremonious fashion at the hands of Chicago’s All-Star duo of Reggie Theus and Artis Gilmore. The next year was the final one as teammates for Bill and Michael Ray, one best remembered for Richardson’s ominous line that “the ship be sinking.” Indeed it was, and New York’s star guard was dealt to Golden State for Bernard King that summer.

King and Cartwright made a pretty nifty pairing in their own right, but I picked Cartwright and Richardson for the last spot on this list because unlike King and his individual brilliance, the contributions of Bill and Michael Ray were far more even, and thus more in the spirit of this list.

9. Jalen Brunson & Julius Randle, 2022-23

• Combined Win Shares as teammates: 16.8

• Best Season: 2022-23 - lost in East Semis; Randle made All-Star & All-NBA; both finished top-20 in scoring; Brunson finished 3rd in Most Improved and received votes for MVP & All-NBA

Call it recency bias if you want, but in the three decades I’ve been watching this team, I’ve never seen a better pair of teammates than Jalen Brunson and Julius Randle.

Obviously that statement deserves to be picked apart. There have certainly been better players (Ewing and Melo, among other possibilities) and there have been tandems that have achieved greater success in individual seasons, but at no time has there been a pair of teammates who reached levels of individual brilliance so regularly in a season where that brilliance translated to meaningful success.

For that reason, even with just 76 games of shared court time under their belt, they deserve a spot on the list.

The better question is how far up the list they can climb. It’s possible to see them leapfrog the next few spots, but to get into the top five, Brunson and Randle would have to lead the way towards a few more playoff runs, at least one of which goes deeper than we just saw. If and when that happens, will Julius Randle still be Brunson’s co-star, or will he be relegated to a lower rung on the ladder (if, of course, he’s even still on the team)?

Something worth wondering for sure, but for now, let’s appreciate what they’ve already given us, and hope for a repeat performance next year.

8. Richie Guerin & Willie Naulls, 1956-1962

• Combined Win Shares as teammates: 70.3

• Best Season: 1961-62 - both made the All-Star team; Guerin made All-NBA; both were top-10 in scoring

As we’re slowly closing in on eight decades of Knicks basketball, it seems notable that only twice in that entire time have a pair of teammates combined to average at least 50 points in a single season.

One of those times comes with a major asterisk. Carmelo Anthony spent 27 games in New York following his trade from Denver shortly before the 2011 deadline, averaging 26.3 points following the move. The record shows that Amar'e Stoudemire put up 25.3 points for the year, he only scored 23.5 a night after Melo’s arrival. As a result, they fell 0.2 points per game shy of 50 as teammates.

The other duo has no such asterisk on their ledger. In the 1961-62 season, Richie Guerin and Willie Naulls combined to average 54.5 points a game - a total that ranked them 6th and 7th in the league, respectively. Unfortunately for them, these scoring exploits are largely forgotten. That’s partially because the league was in the midst of a scoring boom, with teams putting up 118.8 points a night - a record that still stands to this day. This resulted in video game numbers across the board for individual players, none more astounding than Wilt’s 50.4 scoring mark. In comparison to that, Guerin and Naulls’ accomplishments were small potatoes.

But that’s not the only reason this duo has become somewhat lost to time. In that 1961-62 season, the Knicks finished last in the East with just 29 wins. The other win totals of the Guerin and Naulls era were similarly underwhelming: 21, 27, 35, 36 and 40. In six seasons together, Guerin and Naulls made the playoffs just once, getting swept from the Eastern Division Semifinals by the Syracuse Nationals.

The results were so underwhelming that the team dealt away Naulls just 23 games into the 1962-63 season, and then traded Guerin less than a year later. Those trades did little to improve the situation, but New York was awarded the first pick in the draft in consecutive seasons as a result. Those picks didn’t turn into franchise changers, but the Knicks landed a pretty good player with the first pick in the second round in 1964 - one who would go on to win league MVP and Finals MVP six years later.

And while the relevant portion of Knicks history for many fans begins with the drafting of Willis Reed, the players who came before him shouldn’t be forgotten…even if they didn’t do much winning while they were here.

7. Carmelo Anthony & J.R. Smith, 2011-2015

• Combined Win Shares as teammates: 42

• Best Season: 2012-13 - lost in East Semis; Anthony made All-Star & All-NBA; both top 20 in scoring (Anthony 1st; Smith 18th); Smith 6th Man of the Year

Smith wasn’t Anthony’s most important teammate (Tyson Chandler) or his best (Amar'e Stoudemire, albeit briefly before his precipitous decline), but he’s certainly the one who will be remembered as the Robin to Melo’s Batman.

Does it matter that the good times for these guys really only lasted for one season? Sure…but what a glorious season it was, truly the perfect storm for success. Smith was on his best behavior playing for a new contract. Melo was at the peak of his scoring powers, largely playing the four because Stat was on the shelf. The team around them was filled with vets who could do all the little things and keep the ship pointed in the right direction.

Best of all, the league was ready for a team to challenge conventional wisdom about how many threes were too many. The 2012-13 Knicks aren’t remembered as basketball revolutionaries nearly as much as the Warriors teams that came shortly thereafter, but this group set the NBA record with 10.9 made threes per game, in large part because their starting power forward bombed away 6.2 times a night. Smith wasn’t far behind, finishing 18th in attempts and 25th in makes.

Sadly, Icarus was not meant to soar so close to the sun for long, and things started to come crashing down the following year. Still, even the biggest Melo detractors couldn’t help but smile when these two got on a roll.

6. Latrell Sprewell & Allan Houston, 1999-2003

• Combined Win Shares as teammates: 51.7

• Best Season: 2000-01 - lost in 1st round; both made the All-Star team; both received votes for All-NBA and All-Defense

A partnership two decades ahead of its time.

When the Knicks first traded for Sprewell, Allan Houston was already firmly entrenched as the team’s starting shooting guard. The NBA was still many years away from becoming a league that defines players not by positions but by skill sets, and as a result, Spree was largely relegated to a reserve role. The team’s preferred starting five that year - Charlie Ward, Houston, Larry Johnson, Kurt Thomas and Patrick Ewing - evinced a sport that was far more braun than beauty¹.

It wasn’t until the East Semis that Jeff Van Gundy finally inserted arguably his best player into the first five for good. That’s where Spree remained for the next four seasons, giving the Knicks one of the best wing pairings in all of basketball. Unlike a lot of players who got ample playing time around the turn of the century but wouldn’t see the court today, Spree and Houston both had games that would translate to any era. Dribble, pass, shoot, create, defend…they could each do it all.

Thanks to their partnership, the Knicks were able to extend the last legs of the Ewing era a bit farther than it otherwise would have gone. After that magical 1999 run to the Finals, Houston and Sprewell guided New York to a conference finals in 2000, and then in their best statistical season together, a 48-win campaign that abruptly ended with a first round loss to Toronto.

They’d play two more seasons together - years that are remembered as the beginning of New York’s descent into mediocrity and eventual tomfoolery - but the unceremonious end shouldn’t detract from the heights these two were able to reach.

TOMORROW: Part II of the Greatest Duos in Knicks History

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That’s it for today! If you enjoy this newsletter and like the Mets, don’t forget to subscribe to JB’s Metropolitan, or his hockey newsletter, Isles Fix. Also, a big thanks to our sponsor:

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1. There were actually four games where Ewing started alongside backup center Chris Dudley. Those were the days.