Charles Oakley says Knicks are underachieving, should be 3rd or 4th in East

He did not have much to say about owner James Dolan, however

Former New York Knicks great Charles Oakley still doesn’t want to talk about his ongoing feud with Knicks owner James Dolan, but he told ESPN’s Ian Begley that the current iteration of the team should be playing better. New York is 25-36, 12th in the Eastern Conference and four games behind the eighth-place Detroit Pistons.

“They got talent on the team,” Oakley said. “They should [be] third or fourth spot [in the East]. They have enough talent to be the third or fourth spot. It’s up to the guys on the team.”

This is where I have to politely disagree with Oakley. This roster was mediocre from the start, and the Knicks are never going to be one of the conference’s better teams until they sort out their point guard situation commit to being an above-average defensive team. There are areas in which they have been disappointing this year -- Joakim Noah has given them almost nothing because he couldn’t get healthy, Kristaps Porzingis usually doesn’t get enough touches -- but even these things were predictable. Noah hadn’t been himself for a couple of seasons when New York signed him, and Porzingis was always going to to be the third option on offense with Derrick Rose and Carmelo Anthony on the roster.

When Rose initially referred to the Knicks as a superteam last summer, I wrote that they should be seen as a success if they managed to stay healthy, avoid drama and qualify for the postseason. They have failed so spectacularly on those fronts that it’s almost funny, but that doesn’t mean we need to pretend that there was potential for greatness here.