Eddy Curry watched his Knicks teammates again Monday night, his third straight game as a spectator with a left calf injury. But he said he plans to play Wednesday when the Bulls are in New York.
“I’m just ready to play,” Curry said. “I feel like a lot of the pain I had is gone. Whether it’s Chicago or Charlotte, anybody, I’m ready to play Wednesday.”
It could be just in time for the Knicks, who collapsed to 4-9 after being thrashed 107-94 by the Heat. “Got punk’d,” was the way Knicks rookie Nate Robinson put it.
Curry to the rescue?
“He’s good,” fellow injured spectator Shaquille O’Neal said about the one-time Baby Shaq. “He plays hard, he plays aggressive. So he has plenty of time to get to the Shogun level. By that time, I’ll be done. He plays like a real big man. He has a lot of guys to go up against before he can get the title of dominant, but he’s a good, solid, double-respectable big man. I know he had a little problem with his chest last year. I thought it was over for him.”
It was over for the Knicks just after it started Monday, and they’ll welcome back Curry. He should take over the spot being held by Antonio Davis alongside promising rookie Channing Frye. Then the Knicks will just have to add a little more perimeter shooting around the two big guys, someone like, oh, say, I’ve got it: Tim Thomas.
It turns out he’s now available. Too bad such a deal is against the rules, though if the Bulls’ Thomas and Knicks’ Davis were both waived, it could be possible.
“I got traded. That’s all I know,” Davis said Monday after getting two points and three rebounds in perhaps his last Knicks start. “The bottom line is I’m in New York. I can’t worry about what was supposed to happen, what could have happened, what should have happened.”
But as Davis talked, one could hear a wistfulness in his voice.
“Seeing Kirk Hinrich, Tyson [Chandler] there this summer. Being around Ben [Gordon], who is phenomenal to be around, coach [Scott] Skiles. It kind of woke me up,” Davis said about being with the Bulls the last two seasons. “I got excited again about going to practice, what we were doing.
“I still feel that’s a good [Bulls] team. [Michael] Sweetney is exactly what they needed. When Eddy went out, if we had one guy like that . . . we needed that one presence, the one guy who could maybe demand a double team and take some pressure off guys. I watch them every time I get a chance.
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“Chris Duhon,” Davis said with a sigh, “I told everyone he was my MVP last year. Every day at practice . . . he made Ben good just by guarding him, not allowing Ben to settle, to walk out there and get open, forcing Ben to learn how to use picks, forcing Ben to guard him in practice. That’s what makes teams really good, pushing each other every single day, having guys who just came out and worked hard and didn’t complain and wanted to win and get better. You can’t ask for a situation any better than that.”
Davis is a pro’s pro, the player elected president of the NBA Players Association, a guy not about to display disloyalty.
But he would like to go home, perhaps even next season.
Davis said he still plans to settle in Chicago when his career ends. He was planning to start building what he called his dream house in the western suburbs this fall until the trade developed. He’ll get to it. Davis’ salary was necessary to complete the Curry deal, a further indication the Bulls truly didn’t intend to deal Curry.
“I spent the whole summer basically saying I wasn’t going to be traded,” Davis said. “I knew it was the last year of my contract and that situation might be attractive for some team trying to get money off the cap. I was assured I wouldn’t be going anywhere, but I learned a long time ago people can only promise you so much. Everyone can be traded. You have to deal with it.”
Though Davis admitted he didn’t at first.
He has 10-year-old twins, there were the house plans and he said he wasn’t about to live even one season without the family. But there was that $13.9 million on the final year of his contract. Finally, they talked it out and the family agreed they’d stay together.
“They’re going to New York in a week or so,” Davis said.
Davis likes the Knicks and coach Larry Brown and said he’s no longer sure he’ll retire after this season. He mentioned the Knicks and Bulls as possible destinations for a wily veteran.
“My thing is I still want to be in a position to love playing, love being around the guys and loving trying to get better,” Davis, 37, said. “As of now I feel good about what I’m able to do. I did [enjoy] Chicago. But right now I’m focusing on this team and getting in position to be competitive and winning. After the season, I’ll sit down and figure out what I want to do.”
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