Tracy McGrady and Sergio Rodriguez from Sacramento;
The Kings get:
Carl Landry and Joey Dorsey from Houston
and
Larry Hughes from New York
The Rockets get:
Kevin Martin and Hilton Armstrong from Sacramento
and
Jordan Hill and Jared Jeffries from New York.
Houston can also swap first-round picks with New York in 2011, and the Rockets also get New York’s 2012 first-round pick. I hope Rockets GM Daryl Morey at least sent Walsh roses or something nice after he mugged him.
On the surface I have to credit Donny Walsh for doing everything possible for trying to right the ship that is the New York Knicks. Quick, can you tell me the last time NY was actually under the salary cap? It was 19 freaking 96 people! The goal here was to free up a ton of cash to lure one or more of the big boys to MSG next year from a class that includes LeBron, Wade, Bosh and others. Since it was expected that none of the top stars would head to NY alone, the presence of McGrady (if he’s a good boy and stays healthy) could be a big bonus for a team in need of a marquee name. By taking the expiring contract of McGrady, the Knicks expect to be nearly $30 million under the cap on July 1st. This includes Chris Duhon (thank you Lord) and Al Harrington coming off of the books for $16 million.
Being the pessimist that I am, I have to ask the question “what if none of them sign with the Knicks?”
Better yet, I’m not going to ask that, too depressing. I’ll dig a little deeper into this soon.
I’m going to keep this blog very simple with a few quick points:
Knicks can score with any team in the league
Knicks can’t stop any team in the league
Knicks play a team that hasn’t won a game-they win (see Nets)
Knicks play a team that has won a game-they will probably lose (see Celtics)
Nate Robinson summed up the season with this shot:
Iverson will be playing elsewhere. Looks like NY will be passing on The Answer. Honestly…could he have made the team worse??? Apparently Mr Walsh didn’t think he was a good fit as he tries to look at the long term progression of the team.
“Yeah, I’m always concerned about that, but I don’t think you can build a basketball team based on polls,” Walsh said. “I hope we do the right thing, I hope the fans eventually see why we did what we did. There’s always a second stage to this, and I hope it’s favorable to us. In other words, ‘Well, they were smart not to do that then, because now this guy’s good.’ So we’ll see. But I did my best in trying to analyze this.”
“The most disappointing thing is I came into this season with high hopes and I still have them,” center David Lee said. “It’s disappointing.”
With a new lineup featuring rookie Toney Douglas, the Knicks continued the rough season with a 114-101 loss to the Hawks. The youth movement that D’Antoni is pushing is definitely putting points on the board but once again they give up 100+ points including the sixth game where they have trailed by 20 or more points. The night was capped off by one of the ugliest plays you will ever see when Al Harrington split the defense to have a wide open lane for an easy layup. He’s lucky he even hit the backboard as the ball soared way above the rim and into the hands of the Hawks defenders.
Can someone please tell me what is wrong with Chris Duhon?? Sadly he is the best point guard on the roster but threw up a goose egg to bring his season shooting numbers to 17 for 72.
Been away for a little while fighting the sickness so it’s time to get back on the horse. NY won their first game of the season Saturday against New Orleans. I’m a little concerned since Boston held the Bobcats so 59 points and the Knicks gave them 111. They followed it up Wednesday with another loss, this time to the Pacers 101-89. So by my count that is five games and five times they have given up 100+ points so it’s pretty obvious that you won’t see many boring games involving the Knickerbockers this year.
Now for the high and low lights for the week..
The Good -David Lee stays hot averaging a double double. Al Harrington is scoring almost 25 points per game.
The Bad – Jared Jeffries continued to prove me right with his worthlessness. He has been demoted and is averaging 4 points a game.
The Ugly – Nate Robinson could miss two weeks with a sprained ankle. Larry Hughes has stepped up nicely in his absence but they still need his spark.
The Funny -
From ESPN:
The former Knicks point guard made good on his promise to show up for his former team’s home opener and sit in the front row. But Marbury was asked to leave those seats when ushers examined his ticket and determined he was sitting in the wrong spot.
Rather than relocate, Marbury left the arena just as the first quarter was ending.
Adding to the bizarre scene, Marbury pulled out a video camera shortly after arriving and began shooting the live action, at one point standing up — thereby blocking the view of the fans behind him — while play was ongoing.
“It shows you how wacky basketball can be,” said Duhon. “We gave them a big cushion and we showed a lot of grit by coming back, fighting hard.”
It’s Halloween night so this will be brief. Two games and two losses for the Knicks after a 102-100 double overtime loss to Charlotte on Friday night. D.J. Augustin nailed two free throws with 2.5 seconds left to seal the Knicks fate. Coming out missing the first 20 of 25 shots isn’t going to win many games but New York fought back.
A disturbing trend already presenting itself is the high number of three point attempts. NY threw up another 36 attempts after a 30+ effort in the opening game. When you hit only nine of those shots, it’s just not gonna work fellas.
David Lee stayed hot with a double double and three other starters scored in double figures. Robinson and Gallinari added 17 and 16.
Next up – Philly comes to town tonight.
Hope everyone has a safe Halloween and the Knicks can pull out their first win of the young season.
We couldn’t make shots and couldn’t stop them – Mike D’Antoni
The 2009 season opened the same way last season ended, with the Knicks playing little defense and giving up triple digits. Dwayne Wade dropped 26 points as the Heat romped NY 115-93 in the season opener. At one point, the Heat had a 31, yes 31 point lead after outscoring NY 34-15 in a third quarter which also included a 32-8 run. Four of Miami’s starters scored in double digits.
Highlights:
David Lee – 22pts and 9 rebounds
Wilson Chandler – 21pts
Coming off the bench, Danilo Gallinari added 28pts (including 7-13 from 3pt land)
Lowlights:
Made 10 of 39 3 pointers. Yes – 39 attempts. This is the sign of a stable offense.
Missing 11 straight shots in the first quarter.
Darko was seen limping to the locker room with a knee injury.
This is my first post on the new Knicks blog and I apologize now for the negative outlook (can you blame me??). I’m trying to get excited for the start of the 2009 season but honestly I just can’t find many reasons to be. NY goes into this year with essentially the same team as last season. The thought seems to be “to hell with this year-lets get a big free agent next year”. That’s really great and all but I’d like to see some competitive play THIS year. There is no doubt they can score but at the same time, they can’t stop anyone on defense.
This year’s depth chart:
POS
STARTER
2nd
3rd
4th
5th
Point Guard
Chris Duhon
Nate Robinson
Shooting Guard
Wilson Chandler
Toney Douglas
Larry Hughes
Cuttino Mobley
Small Forward
Jared Jeffries
Danilo Gallinari
Power Forward
Al Harrington
Marcus Landry
Center
David Lee
Darko Milicic
Jordan Hill
Eddy Curry
One thing I will be waiting to see is if David Lee can continue to grow in this offense. He averaged 16ppg and 12rpg last year and I truly expect those numbers to get even better. Lee is a stud and one of the few bright spot on the team.
Chris Duhan is not going to light the world on fire. He is an average player who really doesn’t fit the up tempo style that D’antoni wants to run. Nate is just Nate. Undersized and not scared to mix it up with the big dogs so you can always expect a gritty effort.
Wilson Chandler and company provide some decent options. Hughes is a roller coaster but can provide that sometimes needed spark (just needs to stay healthy).
Typing Jared Jeffries name gives me chills but with this being a family friendly blog, I’ll avoid using the words I really want to throw out. Bottom line is that he is horrible, he stinks and makes WAAAAAY too much money to do little more than use valuable oxygen at The Garden. I hate the fact that I will be forced to see him night in and night out just because of his massive contract. At this point I would just throw Gallinari out there to see what he can do. You don’t waste a lottery pick to bury a guy on the bench. If he fails miserably, he’ll still be better than Jeffries.
Al Harrington will put up decent numbers and and like many others has an expiring contract so he will want to produce.
Finally, what would a preview be without mentioning Darko? It’s kinda fun just to have him around and I’m hoping that maybe, just maybe, he can start producing this year. D’Antoni could actually be the guy to turn him around…maybe?
So looking at the record, I don”t see much of an improvement over last year’s 32-50. A team that can’t play defense isn’t going to win so unless they can put up 150 a night, I’m not holding out much hope of climbing out of the basement. Hopefully they surprise me, win the division, go out and sign D Wade in the off season and next year they are hanging a banner in MSG. Stop laughing!!
