Sense and sensitivity: how is it that the NBA eschews the New York Knicks' no. 1 star? Let us count the ways - basketball player Marcus Camby

Basketball Digest, Jan, 2002 by Tom Kertes

IT'S AN AGE-OLD NBA ADAGE that no one knows a center better than his own point guard.

"The Camby-man?" New York Knicks quarterback Mark Jackson is patting his chin thoughtfully while pondering about his pivot in the empty Knicks locker room an hour before facing the Cleveland Cavaliers. "Man, that kid can do it all. I mean, he's excellent. He's so good that even he himself probably doesn't know how good he really is.

"Do you know what we call him around here? `Under.' For underrated."

However, because Jax then goes on to swear that the Knicks will be a major playoff power this season with or without Camby, it seems that even he fails to quite understand how incredibly huge the oft-injured center looms in the Knicks scheme of things.

It's safe to say that, with the possible exceptions of MVPs Shaquille O'Neal and Allen Iverson, there's no other player in the NBA on whom his team is quite as dependent. And that's not just because Camby's so darn good.

Which he is, by the way: A liltingly long, lithe, and levitating court presence, the lanky Knicks center is a serious Eraser Man who led the league in rejects (at 3.65 a game) in only his second NBA season while playing for the Toronto Raptors. Last year, the 27-year-old Camby averaged a double-double (12.0 points and 11.5 rebounds), while finishing third in the NBA in field-goal percentage (.524) and 11th in blocks (2.16 bpg).

Impressive? For sure. But Camby's value to the Knicks goes way beyond his numbers: He's as long as the rest of the team is short. He's lean on a squad overstocked with overly-stocky types. Camby's a quirky quickster on a team of Truck Robinsons, double-parked; a leaper on a team practically screwed into the hallowed floor of Madison Square (and every other) Garden; a premiere post threat playing with a bunch of guys who couldn't post a letter if you spotted them the envelope and stamp.

And that doesn't even include Camby's energetically youthful presence on a Knicks team that's old, older, oldest, playing at a pachydermic pace that borders on the geriatric.

In other words, the Camby-man can do all kinds of things--and do them extremely well--no other player on his team can even dream of doing badly. Which means that, instead of being "a major playoff power," the Knicks will be happy to get playoff tickets if Camby doesn't return from his latest hurt--plantar fasciitis in the left foot--in one piece.

Yet there's mighty little acknowledgement of this face-smacking reality around the team--or around the league, for that matter. Instead, players and management are desperately holding onto the fiction that the sinking Tita-Knicks don't need the lifejacket of Camby's overpowering paint-presence all that much.

"Shot-blocking is just a tool to erase your defensive mistakes," blithe, coach Jeff Van Gundy says when asked about Camby's contributions. "What we as a team have to do is not make defensive mistakes."

What's more, this confounding cover-up is only one of the reasons why Camby remains such a mystifyingly misunderstood player. How does the NBA not love Camby? You don't exactly have to be Elisabeth Barrett Browning to count the ways:

1. NO POINTS--Camby has never averaged more than 14.8 ppg (which he did as a rookie for the Raptors), or more than 12.0 ppg as a Knick. Rather than focusing on his superb rebounding and rejecting--which are much more important factors in winning basketball games--points production has given all the nabobs of negativity in the New York media a convenient excuse to ramble on and on about Camby's "lack of a go-to shot."

2. NO TANGIBLES--The impact of shot-blocking--and intimidating shooters even on shots you don't block--remains a somewhat intangible part of hoops, one that's not necessarily evident to the naked eye. As such, it's vastly underappreciated.

"A great shot-blocker can change the opponent's shooting percentage significantly," Jackson says. "On some nights, Camby's mere presence means 10 to 12 points for us."

3. NO HEALTH--Camby's main problem is that he's quite injury-prone, giving rise to the perception that he doesn't work all that hard off the court, and that he doesn't always want to get on it.

"That is just so wrong it makes me really mad," Knicks swingman Lavor Postell, the well-liked Camby's best bud on the team, says. "How come no one has figured out that players who tend to get injured a lot might get hurt because they seek out contact? And isn't seeking out contact is what winning basketball is all about?

"I mean really, what would people prefer, a big guy who runs away from the action? There are plenty of those in the NBA, believe me. And not one of them are winners."

4. NO LUCK--"If I've ever had any luck in my career, or my entire life, it's been all bad," Camby says. While that's probably not much more than a plantar fasciitis-induced overstatement, many of Camby's many hurts--he's never played more than 63 games in an NBA season--can only be explained by poor karma.

Especially, because what really stands out about the injuries is ...