There were moments Monday when it was easy to forget Tyson Chandler was hurt: he has always been remarkably athletic for a 7-footer, with a gait that more closely resembles a guard’s than a center’s. And you were reminded of that as he glided across the floor at the Knicks’ training headquarters.
And there were other moments …
“Man,” he said at one point, tugging his shorts, dropping his head, “you forget how hard it is to get in shape. And how much harder it is to get back into shape.”
Chandler has been the Knicks’ most interested — and most frustrated — spectator since the season’s fourth game, when he collided with Charlotte’s Kemba Walker, fractured his leg, and left a gaping hole in the middle of the Knicks lineup. The initial prognosis was a four-to-six week absence, and Tuesday marks five weeks.
The Knicks are 4-12 without him.
“It’s been tough for me to watch from the sidelines,” Chandler said. “But it’s even tougher for my teammates being out there.”
Maybe Chandler makes it back by Christmas, maybe sooner. When Jan. 1 was proposed as a date he said: “I hope it’s sooner than that.” And there is some belief, fairly, his return could be precisely the elixir the Knicks need to fix what ails them.
But that also sounds like a lot of the other absolute solutions that swirl around this team now. You could, for example, trade Carmelo Anthony and completely go scorched earth, though that plan would be easier if the Knicks had a pick in this year’s draft — and if they hadn’t spent most of a decade searching for precisely the kind of cornerstone player Melo is, warts and all.
You could fire the coach, and for all the nice words of support the Knicks’ players offer for Mike Woodson they tend to ring hollow when they go all Tin Man as they did against the Celtics on Sunday. But unless you’ve already identified your next Red Holzman, all that’ll do is provide precisely the kind of artificial stimulant Woodson himself offered when he took over for Mike D’Antoni two years ago.
Or you can close your eyes and talk yourself into Chandler being a combination of Shaq, Kareem and Wilt, allow absence to make your heart (and your memory) grow fond of Chandler’s skills (and his limitations) which do make him the most indispensable Knick, but also do not turn him into something he isn’t.
As Anthony himself said not long ago: “We miss Tyson. But we should also be able to survive without him.”
And that’s the thing: If Chandler had never gone down, perhaps the Knicks aren’t stuck at 5-14, but it’s doubtful they’d be 14-5, either. They might not ever lose a home game by 41 points, but even Chandler’s best traits — tangible and intangible — don’t account for the long, glaring lapses of competence and confidence.
And certainly don’t explain how a team could seem to discover and embrace one brand of basketball as it did against the Nets and Magic … and then completely forfeit it 30 seconds after tipoff against the Celtics.
“You all see the offense,” Woodson said. “But I look at the defense. And if you can’t score then you better damn well make sure that they can’t either.”
Yes, Chandler will certainly help with that. But it was also Chandler who seemed the most chafed last spring whenever the Knicks’ offense turned into Melo and the Four Tops; he knows as well as anyone how fundamentally flawed that side of the ball is whenever it becomes too top-heavy.
And there’s this: Everyone remembers how the 18-5 start set the Knicks up last year. But the more critical stretch came later, in March, when they started to break down, started losing, went to the coast, looked like they might never win another game. Except then they played the Jazz in Salt Lake City, won that night, and won 12 more in a row after that.
And Chandler was out for nine of those 13 games, including the first eight. The Knicks essentially made their push for the Atlantic Division title in March and April with the same gaping hole in their lineup with which they’ve tried to surrender it in November and December.
Chandler will be an answer, not the answer. There are some winnable games ahead, but with the Knicks you have to ask this: What exactly constitutes a “winnable” game right now?
Outside of an intrasquad scrimmage, anyway?