Knicks Defense

So if you’re still die-hard enough to call yourself a Knicks fan (obviously you are otherwise you’d be watching the Cavs games at this point) the one thing you have to look forward to at this time is the NBA draft lottery, which is in a few days.  The lottery determines the selection order of the crappiest teams from this past season, with the teams that tanked having a greater chance of picking in the top three.

By all means our season went south after December.  There were some positive signs of change, for example, the Knicks didn’t look so very lost on both ends of the floor, as they had under Isiah Thomas.  There were no sexual harassment court cases.  There was the addition by subtraction of: Jamal Crawford, Zach Randolph, Jerome James and Stephon Marbury.  All were obvious mistakes that were finally erased under the mandate of Donnie Walsh.  Who cares what we got back in exchange, these players were league-wide considered untradeable and undesirable.  Now they are someone else’s problem and that is a big sigh of relief for this Knicks fan right here.

Yet the Knicks seriously need to think about getting into the top three of the draft.  If our luck is crap as it has been the past few years during lottery time, we’ll pick around 8th or 9th again, and those picks end up being Channing Frye type players for the Knicks, so we must try to move up in any way we can.

We need Rubio out of this draft.

What do we have that other teams would want to trade for such a pick?

David Lee.

David Lee is the one player that pretty much every NBA team would at least consider in a trade.

Walsh’s plan is to stay under the cap to get a D-Wade type player in 2010, so Lee would only compromise that agenda since he’s put up All-Star numbers this season including16.0 ppg 11.7 rpg, 3rd in the league in rebounds per game, 1st in the league in double-doubles, 7th in the league in field goal percentage.  Lee is playing at an all-star level and will likely ask for an all-star paycheck.

Lee has worked his butt off for the Knicks and he is the closest thing in spirit we currently have to the Ewings and the Oakleys (sorry, Chandler has not yet proven the warrior mentality despite his obvious talent).  But if Walsh wants to get a pair of all-stars in 2010, plus a great player from this year’s draft in June, he’ll have to negotiate with what he has, which is David Lee and a bunch of spare parts.

Lee is not a player you build around.  Lee is a complimentary player, not a franchise player.  Lee deserves to stay in New York, but you have to stick with the game plan.

Lee had a career year under D’Antoni, but how else could the Knicks move into the top three if we don’t get really lucky during lottery day?

Just bloggin’