Lapchick Knicks

[eminence]

One of the teams/groups of players I feel least confident in my assessment of. So I'm interested to see if folks around here have access to any interesting tales/tidbits about the team, or just general opinions on the squad. Mostly the '50-'54 period where they were most competitive and had a pretty clear core. Faded out pretty badly after that and didn't return to relevance until Holzman.

McGuire/Braun or Zaslofsky/Vandeweghe/Boryla/Gallatin/Simmons/Clifton the guys I see as core to the era. Generally the deepest team in the league, with 7 guys who seemed to be able to consistently contribute on a given night.

Particular questions that came to me while pondering them, but feel free to share anything:

McGuire as a distributor, and to what extent he ran the offense? Seen as elite in that role, or merely good?

Defensive reputation of the core members?

How big of upsets were the 3 finals runs seen as?

Was the fall-off in '55 anticipated after Boryla/Vandeweghe retired and Simmons left? Was there anything noteworthy around Simmons leaving the squad?

Do you think they would've got over the line in '51 or '52 if Braun hadn't been in the military? Unsure if Zaslofsky would've been elsewhere.

Where would you rank them among pre-shot clock franchises?

[Doctor MJ]

So, the guard situation on those Knicks is fascinating because there are several guys who have arguments to be the best of the bunch, but it seems to me that Lapchick preferred Carl Braun. We see Braun not only last on the Knicks longer than anyone else, but extreme excitement over his return from the military at a time when it seems like they should have been all in on Zaslofsky as their star perimeter player. Zaslofsky would leave New York a year later in the wake of him wanting more money than the Knicks would give him, but I don't think it was really about the Knicks being cheap. I think they liked Braun better.

Here's an article from the fantastic From Way Downtown, and a snippet:

Joe Lapchick could be goaded into picking his New York Knickerbockers to win the National Basketball Association championship. The tallest of the Original Celtics could supply the reason in two words—Carl Braun.

The popular Knick coach saw his team carry the powerful Minneapolis Lakers to the seventh and final game of the championship playoffs last spring. It was the best team he ever had. “Funny thing,” Lapchick was saying as he put his team through its early paces at Bear Mountain, N.Y., “we’ve had our best teams the last two years with Braun in the Army. But I sure am glad to see him back. Can you imagine the team we would have had last season? Besides missing Braun, Vince Boryla missed every playoff game due to a bad knee.”

Lapchick says Braun is the most colorful player the Knicks ever had. “Of all the basketball players in the game, I doubt if any of them has the number of shots that Braun has,” says Lapchick. “He is very good on the jump shot, can pivot, tosses well from a set position, and can shoot with one hand.”

Lapchick could go on for hours talking about Braun, the 25-year-old Manhasset, N.Y., athlete who was picked up from Colgate University after he turned professional when he signed with the New York Yankee chain as a pitcher for a $4,000 bonus in 1947.

I'd be remiss not to note they made the Finals without Braun, and never got past the Finals with him. It's definitely not a situation where it was one superstar's team, but I can't see siding with another guard in the group over Braun.

Regarding of whether the Knicks might have won a title if they'd had Braun in the 1951 Finals, they may well have. I don't think there's any doubt that that series against Rochester could have gone either way as is. Adding Braun to the mix, even if it meant no Max, wouldn't have had to add much to give them the edger.

But I do think in general they'd have been no match for a healthy Laker team at any time in that era.

[Doctor MJ]

So something that I'll note in general as you go year by year is that Braun leads the team in FGA every year he's on Lapchick's Knicks, but that we don't actually see Braun lead the team in minutes. In his first 3 years, they don't track minutes, so it's very possible he did lead the team in minutes, but I do think it's worth considering who those guys were leading the team in minutes:

'51-52: RS - Zaslofsky, PS - McGuire
'52-53: RS - Clifton, PS - Clifton
'53-54: RS - Gallatin, PS - Gallatin
'54-55: RS - Gallatin, PS - Baechtold
'55-56: RS - Gallatin, no playoffs, Lapchick Knicks tenure ends

So by this metric, we don't really see a consistent leader until Harry Gallatin emerges in '53-54, when he also made All-NBA 1st team...but oddly the team fell off a cliff that year.

We can also note that '52-53 was the team's best year by a good margin by SRS, and also a year with elite defense that would evaporate the next year. And I think it's telling that '52-53 also happens to be the lone year that Sweetwater Clifton was the big minute guy on the team.

There's undoubtedly more to the story from '52-53 to '53-54 than Clifton playing 5 MPG less and Gallatin playing 4 MPG more, but Clifton was definitely someone specifically known for defense, and while we might think that a rebounder like Gallatin is probably a solid defender, it's really not talked about the same way.

Here it's worth noting that Clifton was 30 in the '52-53 season, and I'd expect something of an old 30. He probably needed to take a step back, and when he did, that happened to be when the era of competitive Knicks play basically ended...despite the fact that with Braun, Gallatin & others not being that old year, you'd think they were poised to keep it up a long time.

And here's where I should acknowledge that I have Clifton in my POY Top 5 and DPOY Top 3 ballots for '52-53, and I don't have any other Knicks on my ballots in that time period.

[eminence]

So something that I'll note in general as you go year by year is that Braun leads the team in FGA every year he's on Lapchick's Knicks, but that we don't actually see Braun lead the team in minutes. In his first 3 years, they don't track minutes, so it's very possible he did lead the team in minutes, but I do think it's worth considering who those guys were leading the team in minutes:

'51-52: RS - Zaslofsky, PS - McGuire
'52-53: RS - Clifton, PS - Clifton
'53-54: RS - Gallatin, PS - Gallatin
'54-55: RS - Gallatin, PS - Baechtold
'55-56: RS - Gallatin, no playoffs, Lapchick Knicks tenure ends

So by this metric, we don't really see a consistent leader until Harry Gallatin emerges in '53-54, when he also made All-NBA 1st team...but oddly the team fell off a cliff that year.

We can also note that '52-53 was the team's best year by a good margin by SRS, and also a year with elite defense that would evaporate the next year. And I think it's telling that '52-53 also happens to be the lone year that Sweetwater Clifton was the big minute guy on the team.

There's undoubtedly more to the story from '52-53 to '53-54 than Clifton playing 5 MPG less and Gallatin playing 4 MPG more, but Clifton was definitely someone specifically known for defense, and while we might think that a rebounder like Gallatin is probably a solid defender, it's really not talked about the same way.

Here it's worth noting that Clifton was 30 in the '52-53 season, and I'd expect something of an old 30. He probably needed to take a step back, and when he did, that happened to be when the era of competitive Knicks play basically ended...despite the fact that with Braun, Gallatin & others not being that old year, you'd think they were poised to keep it up a long time.

And here's where I should acknowledge that I have Clifton in my POY Top 5 and DPOY Top 3 ballots for '52-53, and I don't have any other Knicks on my ballots in that time period.

Well, Braun probably didn't lead the team in minutes in '51/'52

I'd only have '54 as normal sized fall off, and not cliff size, they still managed quite a good record that season (1 seed in the East). '53 does seem to be the best overall year though, and their only noteworthy defensive year. The two noteworthy things are the Zaslofsky to Braun switch that season and Clifton being the clear minutes leader (very close in '52, not so close in '54).

I've never listed all their ages out in one place, so doing so here, by birth year:
Clifton 1922
Simmons 1925
Zaslofsky 1925
McGuire 1926
Boryla 1927 (retired early due to injury issues)
Gallatin 1927
Braun 1927
Vandeweghe 1928 (retired early to be a doctor and to raise a family with his Miss America wife)

Edit: Had to run, but a few more thoughts

Fairly normal career arcs for 6/8 of the main guys.

I probably wouldn't have any of them make my top 5 any year, though '53 would be Clifton's best chance for certain due to the clear defensive spike. I mainly think of them as a good offense, workable defense squad over the course of the run.

McGuire/Braun/Gallatin all moderately awarded at the time, with a number of Allstar appearances and each getting 1-2 All-NBA appearances (McGuire '51/Gallatin '54/'55/Braun '48/'54). Allstar of course not existing until '52, but it's noteworthy the version of the team most of us would probably say was their strongest ('53) was only rewarded with 2 Allstar bids (Braun/Gallatin) and no All-NBA players.

Zaslofsky was of course extensively lauded in prior seasons with the Stags (4x 1st Teamer).