Eddy Curry Will Never Satisfy You

Howard Beck writes as positive an article as one can about Eddy Curry in today's New York Times. Beck uses the old trick of mentioning Curry's excellent shooting percentage while ignoring all the possessions that end with a Curry turnover, assigns Larry Brown blame for not playing Curry more last year (though Curry played the second highest number of minutes in his five-year career), and reports that Isiah Thomas "vows" to give Curry more minutes as he's arrived to camp in the best shape of his career.

The best shape of his career is judged on a generous curve, as this sentence from the article's final paragraph attests:

[Curry] lagged behind teammates during end-of-practice sprints Tuesday morning, but Thomas said he was extremely satisfied with Curry’s conditioning.

Curry is what he is: an above average scorer who can't pass, rebound, or defend. I don't think Curry's a bad kid (see his quote in Beck's article about getting more playing time this year, "If I show him (Thomas) that I can play the whole game, I’ll play the whole game.") but he's never learned to work hard or translate his size and athletic ability into a useful set of basketball skills.

Curry should be the poster child for improving player development in the U.S. He went straight from playing against boys in high school to men in the NBA. Through no fault of his own, he was drafted by a dysfunctional organization then traded to another. Eddy Curry hasn't made himself better. I doubt he ever will. He hasn't had much help, though, either.