I just don’t understand how his role seemingly got smaller even after being an all star in his rookie year can someone please explain
Neither had a lot of time devoted to them during the Last Dance and I admittedly don't know a lot about them. I'm assuming that both were defensively-minded low usage players just looking at the stats.
Cartwright was definitely getting old during the first 3-peat (~33 during the first championship). He was also an NBA All Star during his rookie season (that season he also posted career highs in PPG, RPG and MPG). It also looks like he dipped to around 20 MPG during the 92-93 season, was someone else taking up a lot of his minutes I'm guessing?
It looks like Longley had higher box score numbers during the second 3-peat compared to Cartwright's stats during the first 3-peat but that never tells the full story.
Thanks!
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In 1980, Bill Cartwright made his only NBA All Star Team. He was a replacement for the injured Dave Cowens. Cartwright was one of three rookies in the game, and the least impressive of the bunch - the other two were named Earvin and Larry. He was the third pick in the 1979 draft. Cartwright had starred at San Francisco as a tall, skinny, back-to-the-basket center and joined second-year star and teammate Michael Ray Richardson on the East roster. The Combo looked to rejuvenate the Knicks and led to them to playoff contention as the last team out.
Cartwright was not only immediately effective but seemed prime to become one of the top centers in the league. In terms of centers since, his excellent rookie season parallels Hall of Famers like Olajuwon, Robinson, and Shaq. He'd had several 30 point games, was averaging 23 points, and would end the season averaging 8.6 rebounds. He was also shooting a fairly remarkable 81% from the free throw line. He would be the subject of a Sports Illustrated profile in March of 1980 called "Were It Any Other Year." The point: It's hard to be a rookie sensation in a year when two historic rookies were not only being historic, but changing and reinvigorating the game.
And of course, we primarily know Cartwright today as the obligatory, almost grandfatherly center for the first run of Michael Jordan's titles. That he lasted this long is impressive because of the too-familiar narrative of a very large man with great promise who could not keep his feet healthy. See also Bill Walton. See also Jeff Ruland. But even before those injuries, Cartwright steadily declined after his first season on Knicks teams that did not live up to the early promise of these young stars: Michael Ray Richardson's sad history of abuse has been well-chronicled. Even though Cartwright would average twenty points again in 1980, he was not really tough enough to withstand eventual division rivals like Ruland, Moses Malone, and Robert Parish. His rookie season doesn't seem so much like an aberration or an exception as much as a moment whe
... keep reading on reddit ➡I traded him for the #1 pick so I could draft Jordan (and then traded for the pick to draft Barkley and traded for Stockton) and immediately it was a regrettable trade. While his injury history made me worried that he'd be a quick drop-off, he went off in year 1 away from New Jersey, dropping over 40 a night. Meanwhile, Michael Jordan has dropped a bit in skill, but he is still a major part of the best starting 5 in my league's history (Larry Bird, Michael Jordan, Charles Barkley, John Stockton and Kelly Trupicka).
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Once upon a time, Bill Cartwright was a superstar at the beginning of his NBA career from 1979-80 to 1980-81 when he averaged 20+ points per game. His best overall NBA season is his rookie season when he averaged 21.7 points, 8.9 rebounds, 1.2 blocks, 8.1 field goals made and 5.5 free throws made as the starting center.
Cartwright's stardom was short-lived when he had four separate foot fractures that made him miss the entire 1984-85 season which led NY to draft Patrick Ewing in 1985, and the arrival of Ewing relegated Cartwright to the bench for pretty much the rest of his Knicks tenure, ending when the Knicks chose to trade Cartwright to the Chicago Bulls in 1988 in exchange for Charles Oakley.
The Oakley-Cartwright trade angered Michael Jordan because Jordan and Oakley were best friends off the court, and he antagonized Cartwright endlessly until Cartwright stood up to Jordan, and Jordan stopped.
His best season with the Bulls was in 1988-89 when Cartwright scored 12.4 points, 6.7 rebounds, 0.5 blocks, 4.7 field goals made and 3.0 free throws made within 29-30 minutes per game as the Bulls' starting center. In 1989-90, Cartwright averaged 11.4 points, 6.5 rebounds, 0.5 blocks, 4.0 field goals made and 3.2 free throws made within 30 minutes per game as the Bulls' starter at center.
Eventually, Cartwright would see his minutes and overall game play dip (attributed to a broken hand) as although he was still the starter at center, he averaged 9.6 points and 6.2 rebounds around 28-29 minutes in 1990-91, averaged 8.0 points and 5.1 rebounds in 23 minutes per game as he missed 18 games with a broken hand in 1991-92, averaged 5.6 points and 3.7 rebounds in 19-20 minutes per game in 1992-93 while missing 19 games with a back injury, and averaged 5.6 points and 3.6 rebounds in 18-19 minutes in 1993-94 while missing 40 games with more back pain.
As Cartwright declined at the end of his Bulls tenure, the starting center role was manned by Stacey King or Will Perdue whenever Cartwright missed time. But after Chicago traded King away to the Minnesota Timberwolves, Luc Longley eventually became the starting center in Cartwright's absence.
At the end of 1993-94, Cartwright became a free agent and teams interested in him were the Sacramento Kings, Houston Rockets and the Utah Jazz before he chose to join the Seattle SuperSonics for a two-year $5M contract with guaranteed money, so Longley was supposed to be the starting center for Chicago in 1994-95, but Will Perd
... keep reading on reddit ➡And yet the rest of the NBA never complained...WTF do you mean about PARITY???😤😤😤
While reading the book "Mindset" by Carol Dweck, she has a chapter dedicated to sports and how the fixed mindset can hinder a player's ability to get to their highest level, or in this case, become a NBA champion.
In the book, she describes Ewing in the passage below:
> They [the Knicks] now had "twin towers", the seven-foot Ewing, and the seven-foot Bill Cartwright, their high-scoring-center. They had the chance to do it all. They just needed Ewing to be the power forward. He wasn't happy with that. Center is the star position. And maybe he wasn't sure he could hit the outside shots that a power forward has to hit. What if he had really given his all to learn that position? Instead, Cartwright was sent to the Bulls, and Ewing's Knicks never won a championship.
The premise is a bit reductive, but I am curious to hear from any Knick fans or others who were around during that time.
Before Kerr was hired with the W's the NY Daily News reported that Bill Cartwright was ready to join Kerr's coaching staff with the Knicks. Cartwright had head coaching experience and went to USF. He's from Elk Grove in the Sacramento area. Would he come back to the Bay Area to help coach the W's?
