How good were Houston and Sprewell?

These two were considered the catalysts for the Knicks in their late 90s run. Yet these two were still on the team during the beginning of the demise in the early 2000s. The Wins Produced numbers only go back to 2001 as of now, but lets look at these two and see what they were able to accomplish. Reminder: Average WP48 is .100

2001:
Allan Houston
.075 WP48
4.5 Wins Produced
2858 Minutes

Latrell Sprewell
.064 WP48
4.0 Wins Produced
3017 Minutes

Houston and Sprewell (8.5 Wins) Rest of Team (39 Wins)

In 2001 Sprewell and Houston were both below avergae performers but were able to contribute 8.5 wins because of the large number of minutes that they played. This story follows a similar pattern.

2002:
Allan Houston
.011 WP48
.7 Wins Produced
2914 Minutes

Latrell Sprewell
-.012 WP48
-.8 Wins Produced
3326 Minutes

Houston and Sprewell (-.1 Wins) Rest of Team (30.4 Wins)

In 2002 the all-star combo produced -.1 Wins. Yes, they actually were a negative on the Knicks season. It should be noted that the rest of the team performed remarkably similar to the previous year. The only difference being Marcus Camby only produced 4.4 Wins as opposed to the 16.9 that he did in 2001, he only played in 29 games in 2002.

2003:
Allan Houston
.042 WP48
2.7 Wins Produced
3108 Minutes

Latrell Sprewell
.052 WP48
3.1 Wins Produced
2859 Minutes

Houston and Sprewell (4.8 Wins Produced) Rest of Team (31.3 Wins Produced)

Again the team performed fairly similar to the way they had performed in the past, except this year Marcus Camby was no longer with the team and the subsequent performace dropped. This is a continual pattern of the Knicks having a fairly decent team around the alleged two superstarts, if these two were actual superstars, then the Knicks would have been a juggernaut. Unfortunately, these two were not very good players.

The reason that the there is a difference in perception and reality regarding these two is that both of them could score the ball. Unfortunately, that is all they could do as neither of them were very good rebounders, they both turned the ball over and neither created a lot of turnover via steals. However, since player performace is driven by points per game and nothing else, these two were thought of as great players. The numbers tell a different story and offer an explanation as to why the Knicks could never get over the hump, the team around Sprewell and Houston was a pretty decent one. Unfortunately the big two were not very big at all.