Knicks Defense

Reports out of Spain have Rubio pulling a Fran Vazquez and basically screwing over the NBA team that was counting on them to come over and play basketball. For the next two years Rubio will be playing overseas in one of those leagues that nobody here cares about.

Since Minnesota was involved in that unfair Kevin Garnett trade that should not have been allowed, I say this is the basketball universe’s unfolding of karmic retribution.  They said they new he might stay for a few years when they picked him, obviously they drafted more than one point in case he did decide to stay.

Maybe the Ewing curse is finally wearing off on us, but the Kevin McHale curse is only getting started in Minny.  Is Rubio holding out for the Knicks?  I don’t know how much you can read into it.  He went into the draft, got picked high, and decided to stay in Europe instead.  This is a recurring theme amongst some of these Euros.

Basketball teases.

Is it enough to keep our talented power forward?  Acccording to this, it is not.

Don’t be surprised if David Lee ends up signing with Memphis or Oklahoma City by the end of the week.  Our boy K-Berg, formerly of Newsday and currently of CBS Sports Online is reporting that the Knicks will not attempt to match the offers Lee is about to get from some of these midwestern teams.  We all knew with the 2010 plan/hype that this would be difficult.  Lee deserves his just due, he’s put up big numbers and is a scrappy player that has proven his worth. If he’s looking for a certain price I hope he gets it.

Lee has been one of the few Knicks in recent memory I can liken unto an Oakley or a Starks.  There has simply been a shortage of real knicks in recent years, most of them fall over and die instead of standing up to fight.

Lee I wish you the best wherever you end up.  Hopefully it is with us, but this is business and with the lifespan of the average NBA player being so short, I hope you get everything you’re looking for with this next contract you’re about to ink.

The Knicks continue their search for a new point guard to run the D’Antoni attack when they meet with former cross town rival Jason Kidd on Wednesday.  For years, free agent Kidd got the best of the New York Knicks as a Net, does Kidd have anything left in the tank to help the Knicks reach the playoffs for the first time in many years?

Would the signing of Kidd be a white flag surrender in the effort to steer Ricky Rubio to New York?

If you read this in time, let me know who you think it will be.

I’m betting we walk away with Stephen Curry tonight, but with all the changes going into the draft–Shaq in Cleavland, Vince Carter in Orlando, Jamal Crawford in ATL, and let’s not forget we just bought the 29th pick at the bottom of the first round, who knows what the Knicks will look like after it is all said and done.

Tonight we can take John Coltrane GIANT STEPS tonight towards 2010 success, or we can take baby steps, either way, good luck to our Knicks, may the do the right thing when it counts…

Let’s see if there isn’t a spike in season ticket sales in a few hours…

So Vescey’s got an article out that discusses the possibility of the Knicks trading up to 5 and using the 5th to get to 2, which seems kind of unlikely to me.

Hypothetical question:  what would a back court consisting of Rubio and Curry look like in today’s NBA?  Undersized, no defense, how would that work?

Just bloggin’

…Are walsh and D’Antoni on the same page as far as what this team needs to do in preparation for the season, and more remotely, the summer of 2010?  Some all-star players will come here just because of the money and the prime-time spotlight, but if we want the handfull of truly elite players, we have to make the moves now that prove to them we are on the right track.

Yo Danilo, how’s that back feeling, homie?

Well, the draft is in a few days, we have that to look forward to as Knicks fans. Reports coming from around the league have us offering Wilson Chandler to Washington in an effort to move up in the draft. I’m not sure how I feel about that given Chandler’s development in 1.1 NBA seasons (if you recall during Chandler’s rookie year, he played only at the tail end of a 23-win season). I like Wilson Chandler, he’s athletic, can shoot, has moves, can block shots…

You can say this about moving Chandler: they must feel pretty certain about Danilo Gallinari recovering fully if they’re going to move away a potential legit starting small forward (Chandler) for one that had back surgery and sat out most of the season (Gallinari).

I see a pattern developing in New York. If you are a knick rookie, you sit. That’s kind of odd if you think about it, considering our record over the past few years. You’d think the rookies would get the burn to develop our youth.

I wonder how close to moving up in this draft Walsh and company are? Could they make it to five or even 3 or 2? We’ve got Chandler and Lee, and not much else to entice ball clubs with. Nate? Will people trade away their picks for the rights to resign a prolific scorer who is terribly undersized and sometimes makes the wrong decisions with the ball?

If Nate was ever going to be a true point guard, we wouldn’t have had to get Duhon, and we wouldn’t still be looking at taking another point guard with our lottery pick this year. Keep Nate only if you want to build with the shortest two guard in recent NBA history. Nate should have been watching Muggsy Bouges tapes instead of Steve Nash tapes if he wanted to improve his point guard skills.

Speaking of Nash, I can see the possibility of him coming to New York at some point during the 2009-2010 season. He lives in Manhattan in the off-season and basically epitomizes what D’Antoni wants in a point guard, so if the Suns sniff his intentions to leave Steve Kerr’s hot mess behind, they may try to get something back for him before his 2010 free agency status kicks in (of course we don’t know how much value we will have left to offer by then since we’re trying to trade our current players for a pick in this week’s draft).

T-minus a few days and counting until our beloved Knicks pick 8^th in the NBA draft.

T-Mac as a knick? I can’t see it happening, but never say never.

I knew it.

Well, if they’re moving Lee, you BETTER get quality in return, and not just picks.  Walsh is sticking to his 2010 guns, we’ve got a year left of patience to see how it turns out.  We will get at least one all-star, but we should get two out of it.

As far as the finals are concerned, I’ve always considered the Lakers to be the stronger team, and I expect them to win today, but I’m rooting for the Magic because of Ewing and Van Gundy.  I also like the way Turkoglu plays and hope that Danilo Gallinari can grow into that kind of player for the Knicks faithful.

We need to get Thabeet or Rubio out of this draft…   Right now, it is not happening.  Curry is too short to defend the two in the NBA, he may put up good numbers on the other side of the floor, but that isn’t going to help us any more than it did when Isiah had Marbury and Crawford ruining things for us in the back court.

-just bloggin’

The one thing about Isiah during his time here, he always made it pretty clear who he was going to draft with our picks.  That was true about Channing Frye, (bust?) we knew for over a month that Isiah was going to get him before the draft, and that was also true about Wilson Chandler.

But now we have Walsh making the pick, so will it be a shocker, a sleeper, or another bust for New York?

We need just about everything.  We’re not “set” at any position in my opinion, our team sucks, which is why we’re in the lottery AGAIN, so gut it and start over.

I think that’s what Walsh is doing anyway.  Kind of hard to move Curry right now due to his poor work ethic, lack of competitive spirit and weak physical conditioning, but everyone and their mom thinks Nate is basically done in NY and everyone is scratching their heads trying to figure out how Walsh is going to stick to the 2010 plan AND resign David Lee, who has put up all star numbers this year on a losing team.

Nice to see Patrick Ewing back in the NBA finals, even if it is as an assistant coach instead of as a player for the New York Knicks.

It is even nicer to see Stan Van Gundy get to the NBA finals, after “Pat the Rat” unjustly stole his coaching duties and eventual NBA title in Miami.

I think we’ll take your Dwayne Wade from you as our 2010 retribution, Mr. Riley.

What do you think Shaq has to say now that his two former teams in Orlando and Los Angeles are back in the NBA finals without him?  Someone’s going to win a chip without him, but I think Orlando would be even more appreciative of it than LA, who has had more glory in recent years than Orlando, my former town.

I remember the drama that ensued upon O’Neal’s departure, Shaq had a problem with the scrub newspaper people associated with the Orlando Sentinal at the time (scrubby hacks such as Tim Povtak, who is even more of a Knick hater than Charles Barkley).  When the time had come for O’Neal to leave, he said of Orlando, “in Orlando I was a big fish in a small, dried up little pond, in Los Angeles, I’ll be a big fish swimming around with other big fish.”

When Shaq left it completely demolished any basketball spirit the city of Orlando had built since the Magic were an expansion team.  They had built this beautiful building right next to Interstate-4 called the “Magic Fanatic,” where Scott Skiles’ brother worked.   As a direct result of Shaq leaving for LA, that place went out of business and became office space over the years.  Then a few years later, there was the Grant Hill / Tmac debacle.  I’m not happy about the Knicks never making the playoffs, but I’m happy for the people of Orlando, because they have kept the faith and now they’re back in the finals with Dwight, Turk and Rashard–plus they did it without their all-star Jameer Nelson.

Otis Smith is hands-down my vote for GM of the year.  They finally got rid of that hockey idiot of a GM and put someone in that really knows what he is doing.  I hope Walsh does the same for us now that he is running show at 2 Penn Plaza.