Quote Originally Posted by ShaqAttack3234
Spencer Haywood seemed like he could be a cancer, he was on the '79-'80 Lakers who won the title. The Lakers biggest weakness had probably been the power forward position in previous years, so they added Spencer Haywood in addition to Jim Chones and later Mark Landsbeger. But Haywood was a problem all year, they eventually suspended him in the NBA finals and went on to win the championship.

When Haywood first came to the Knicks, according to Red Holzman, a lot of pressure on him to replace Dave DeBuscherre who was one of the great defensive players and Knicks as well as one of the most underrated forwards in NBA history and the man who took the Knicks to the next level and made them a championship contender who won in '70 and '73.

The Knicks were also experimenting with Spencer Haywood around that time because they were weak at that position. In fact, Wilt Chamberlain almost came back to play center for them.

In '77, the Haywood/McAdoo duo didn't even have much time together. Haywood was bothered by a leg injury for most of the season that eventually required surgery and limited him to 31 games. McAdoo had been traded to New York in early December after very public trade speculation that seemed to parallel Melo in the '10-'11 season. In the duos first 4 games together before injuries, they were 3-1 with their lone loss being by 1 point and Haywood was averaging 28.3 ppg while McAdoo was averaging 21.3 ppg.

So the '78 season is the real season to look at, although this was the year that the great coach Red Holzman temporarily stepped down and Willis Reed replaced him.

McAdoo put up fantastic numbers as usual finishing 3rd in scoring at 26.5 ppg, 8th in rebounding at 12.8 rpg, 3.8 apg, 1.6 bpg and 1.3 spg on 52% shooting. The one blemish was 4.4 turnovers per game. Haywood returned to play in 67 games, but was far from the 20/10 seasons he had put up through his first 7 seasons(1 in the ABA when he led the league in scoring). Haywood averaged 13.7 ppg, 6.6 rpg and 1.1 bpg on 48.4% shooting as he was limited to 26 mpg due to another big man, Lonnie Shelton growing into a bigger in his second season. Shelton averaged 14.9 ppg, 7.1 rpg, 2.4 apg, 1.4 bpg and 1.3 spg on 51.4% shooting in 28 mpg.

The Knicks also had Earl Monroe on the perimeter as their second leading scorer behind McAdoo, although he was now 33 years old, but they had Jim Cleamons rounding out an extremely talented starting 5.

Here's an article from Sports Illustrated about this season. http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vau...3153/index.htm

So it seems like the '78 Knicks stars had problems with coach Willis Reed who was gone during the next season as Red Holzman returned. Willis was not afraid to criticize his stars, and he was also a rookie coach inexperienced with dealing with egos, Spencer Haywood seemed particularly sensitive.

McAdoo and Haywood also didn't seem to be a natural fit together, and nearly really filled the team's need for a big center. Haywood was used to being the man on his teams, and obviously wasn't anymore playing with a better player in Bob McAdoo.

As the Sports Illustrated article discusses, the Knicks tried to throw stars together as the great Knick teams faded instead of going through a true rebuilding process. They wanted big names to fill the seats, not young players developing for the future.

However, the stars didn't seem to have a problem with each other.



This was from a game that McAdoo added 19 points and 22 rebounds in addition to Haywood's 22 and 13, and third big man Lonnie Shelton added 14 points and 10 rebounds. Which shows how overpowering that frontline could be as they outrebounded the Cavs 65-45 in that game. And 55 of the Knicks 96 points came from those 3 as well as 45 of their 65 rebounds. In fact, those 3 Knicks matched Cleveland on the boards.

McAdoo still seemed to be one of the game's most talented players. He opened the playoffs with a 41 point game on 17/25 shooting vs Cleveland in a 132-114 victory. That wasn't the only time McAdoo scored 40 that season and he seemed to have quite a few big games.

In the Knicks opening victory that McAdoo scored 41 in, Haywood also played well with 16 points, and Lonnie Shelton also played a key role and scored 14. In game 2, Haywood hit a game-winning 20 foot jumper to complete the 2 game sweep of the mini-series. Haywood's game-winner was his 27th point to tie him with McAdoo as the Knicks high scorer that game, and Shelton added 14 again.

But they were swept by the Sixers in the second round. Part of the reason for this was that McAdoo was in a shooting slump, he scored just 22 total points on 11/34 shooting in the first 2 games leading to blowouts of 40 and 19 points, respectively.





McAdoo picked up his scoring the final 2 games, but he didn't seem to dominate those games from what I've read. In fact, Sixers coach Billy Cunningham called Caldwell Jones the Sixers MVP of that series.

In addition to Jones and Steve Mix who got the defensive assignments on Bob McAdoo, the Sixers were loaded with talent. They had one of the game's exceptional talents in Julius Erving in addition to big scorers like World B. Free and Doug Collins as well as star big man George McGinnis. They had more talent in Darryl Dawkins, Joe Bryant and Henry Bibby.

So this team was about as stacked as you can get, they'd go on to lose to the eventual champion Bullets in 6 in the conference finals. But there's a reason why this Sixer team had been favored to win the title the previous season.

Despite the problems, the Knicks finished 43-39 and got to the second round of the playoffs. The main reasons they didn't get further were that their superstar and best player by far simply struggled, and they faced a team that was better and more talented than they were.

But it does seem that the Knicks were more comfortable by the end of the season. This team was blown up the next year as both McAdoo and Haywood were traded.

And JLauber, wikipedia says injury-plagued seasons with the Knicks, Celtics, Pistons and Nets. It doesn't refer to the '77 and '78 seasons specifically.

McAdoo did have a few nagging injuries in the '76-'77 season, but that's what they were, not career-altering injuries by any stretch, particularly at 25 years old.

McAdoo had played in 20 of the 24 Braves games while he was still on their team. He had a pulled groin muscle at the time of the trade which delayed his Knick debut by 2 games with 58 games remaining on the Knicks schedule at the time of the trade. He injured his knee in his 4th game with the Knicks, however the injury wasn't considered serious. He traveled with the team to Atlanta and returned 2 games later. He had another injury late in the season in March missing the March 26th and 27th games vs the Bullets. This also wasn't a serious injury and he returned on March 29th with a 40 point game vs the Kings But all they were was nagging injuries, and he played in 52 of the Knicks 58 games remaining at the time of the trade. Not only did he play in all of the remaining games after that last 2 game stretch, but his 40 point return wasn't his only 40 point game during that time, he had 41 points in the Knicks second to last game of the season.

In McAdoo's 52 games with the Knicks, he averaged 26.7 ppg and 12.7 rpg on 53.4 FG% in 39.1 mpg. As I mentioned, he put up the same numbers in '78 while playing in 79 games and averaging 40.3 mpg.

The real injuries started after that causing him to appear in just 60 games in a '79 season between the Knicks and Celtics, just 58 games in an '80 season with Detroit, and just 16 games in an '81 season split between the Pistons and Nets.

So lets not confuse '79-'81 with '77 and especially '78.
Great Posts. I was looking at Haywood's Videgamesque stats. SH was a pretty good player, but he was a cancer/had a major attitude problems.