"If you look at it on paper, it looks like this is a playoff team" - Ariza on Knick's inability to make the postseason during his time with them

Trevor Ariza bounced around the NBA quite a bit during his 18-year career in the league, as he played for ten different teams over that time. The team he broke in with was the New York Knicks after they used a second-round pick on him in the 2004 NBA Draft.

The 6'8" forward was still finding his way early in his career with the Knicks, but he landed with a pretty talented team for his first season-and-a-half in the league. And yet, they struggled to put everything together, which resulted in them missing out on the postseason.

Ariza gets real on his New York teams

In just his second season in the league, the Knicks opted to trade the Florida native to the Orlando Magic, so his time with the team wasn't all that long. Still, looking back at these teams, it was somewhat surprising they didn't make the playoffs.

These New York teams featured Stephon Marbury, Jamal Crawford, Penny Hardaway, Allan Houston, and Tim Thomas, yet they found no success. Looking back on his time with the Knicks, Trevor admitted that the pieces simply did not fit together.

"The pieces just didn't mesh anymore together," Ariza said on Forgotten Seasons (18:40). "If you look at it and you see the way it worked, or if you look at it on paper, it looks like this is a playoff team…Allan Houston was hurt, (Stephon Marbury) he had the ball in his hands, he played the way he played. Tim Thomas was there; he still needed the ball in his hands to be effective as well…The pieces just didn't fit right at the time."

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Trevor highlights the Knicks' unbalanced depth chart

It's clear the Knicks had a lot of talent at this time, but they simply couldn't mesh together to achieve a common goal. Things might have panned out differently if they had been able to do that.

While he doesn't directly address it, the one-time champion showcases this team's problem; they had too many mouths to feed on offense. Most of their best players needed the ball in their hands, and while they had tons of backcourt depth, their frontcourt was severely undermanned.

That resulted in an unproven rookie in Ariza playing in 80 games and averaging 17.3 minutes per game. While he held his own, given that he was a raw second-round pick, the Knicks would have ideally rather had a more proven player earning those minutes.

While this experience early in his career may have helped the former Bruin go on to have a successful career, it destroyed the Knicks' chances of being a playoff contender. It's a shame they didn't reach their potential, but sometimes, that's just how the cookie crumbles in the NBA.

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