More Dysfunctional- Jail Blazers or Isiah's Knicks?

[Unocal]

Since we have plenty of hoops fans here and I don't want to hijack the playoff thread with the Finals coming up, I want to throw out an interesting little question.

It involves two of the more dysfunctional/fragile/volatile NBA teams of my time.

Those who think these Pacers are fragile? They had NOTHING on these guys.

So who was worse?

The Blazer players were more flagrantly in trouble, but the Knicks players made more money and won less.

Split decision, but I got to go with the Knicks.

Not only for dragging down the proud franchise, not only for the overpaying of players, running the team into the ground, bad hires, all the badness, but also this:

Compared to other teams of dysfunction, they couldn't even do right on the court. Other teams bickered, but could still win here and there.

For all I hear about the Jail Blazers, at least they could actually win some games more often than not.

Look at the win-loss records in those eras:

Portland

2000-2001: 50-32

2001-2002: 49-33

2002-2003: 50-32

2003-2004: 41-41

New York

2003-2004: 39-43

2004-2005: 33-49

2005-2006: 23-59

2006-2007: 33-49

2007-2008: 23-59

Overall Record

Portland: 190-138 (.579 winning percentage)

New York: 151-259 (.368 winning percentage)

Playoffs

Portland won only 3 playoff games overall in that stretch after the 2000 WCF collapse- all against Dallas in 2003 first round- and that's STILL better than the Knicks four-and-out sweep in the 2004 first round to the Nets.

The Blazers of that era may have had their issues, but at least they could deliver a decent product on the court at times. Plus, their players weren't making ridiculous money and bad contracts!

Portland never finished worse than .500- the Knicks couldn't even reach .500!

The 2000-01 Blazers had a 86 million payroll and the '03 team had a 105 million payroll, but the '06 Knicks made that look like chump change with a 126 million payroll!

In 2001-02, Rasheed Wallace made 14 million dollars. The 2005-06 Knicks had THREE guys making more than that!

[Daily Horoscope]

You ever seen Midnight Express? It's best to watch it late at night so the sun comes up right as the movie ends.

Jail.

[C's]

Has to be the Knicks. The Blazers comfortably made the playoffs every year in a much tougher conference. The Knicks were a 25 win team in a conference where the bottom playoff seeds were .500 teams.

[TJKiddsHead]

the blazers had some crazy guys on those teams but the knicks were a trainwreck from ownership down through seemingly ever facet of the organization. front office, players, coaching. everyone was screwing up.