No defense? We don't know who the Knicks will have a Center and that will go a long way towards determining what kind of D we can play.

Yeah, if we get Dwight Howard, which I have been preaching the past week, and I will continue to preach. However, there aren't too many other dominant defensive centers out there, let alone ones that are attainable, that can turn us from a week defensive team to a good one. When Landry Fields, Douglas and MAYBE Shumpert (We don't know yet, so don't bother bringing his name up at this point), who plays defense all the time? Now lets rephrase that question. Who on the team plays defense EFFECTIVELY all the time, on the team? The answer is nada. Therefore, if you are going to get a big that's simply good or effective on defense, like Foster, then you aren't going to improve the team defense much. If you get Howard, you better get everyone else commited, or else opposing guards are going to constantly attack the basket and get Howard to foul out in the first quarter.

No Team Play? Since when has a D'Antoni team been known for a lack of team play? Sure if you just throw any group of guys together the 1st thing you notice is that they aren't in synch and there's no chemistry. That's why you have Training camp and a regular season.

It's not going to change much when you have Melo needing the ball as much as he does combined with the fact that he doesn't pass the ball much at all. Did you see how many coast to coasts he went for last season? Or rebound, take the ball up the court and jack it ups? There were quite a lot. It doesn't matter if the coach is Red Holzman. Melo is who he is. If you want a team play style, don't have Melo on your team.

Our PG's aren't Distributors? That can be said about many guards before they play for D'Antoni, but we've seen over and over how some guards are able to improve their assist numbers playing for Mike. Duhon jumped from 4 to 7 assists and Felton from 5.6 to 9 assists.
Billups didn't have the same opportunity as they did. Maybe with more time he can also show improvement. TD isn't a PG, but we also have Iman so perhaps between the 2 we can have just enough to get the job done.

You can have a lot of assists but that doesn't in fact make you a good point guard. Again, take a look at the Stephon Marbury or even Allen Iverson comparison. Also, Raymond Felton didn't jack up shots nearly the way Billups did for us last season, and he also did a pretty good job running the team. The only thing Billups has going is that he knows where Melo likes to go one on one.

You are giving too many "Ifs and perhaps and maybes." We don't know how Iman will do. As of now, he's more of a scorer, from what we've seen. TD, even you admitted, isn't a PG and Billups isn't that great of a PG either. He's more of a clutch shooter and he used to be a defender. Not anymore.

STAT is an injury risk? Sure he's had some health issues but he also has given his all for this franchise and over the last 2 years he's played 82 games for the Suns and then 78 for the Knicks last year. He was healthy in game 1 of the Playoffs. The back injury seems to be a fluke. The longer off season and shorter season should help STAT a lot. We'll probably see the team give him plenty of rest so i'm not as concerned about his health.

How do you know it was a fluke. Are you a doctor? Just because he was OK the past couple of years doesn't mean he can't be in the process of breaking down Just remember, Allan Houston was one of the most durable players in the league before he had that surgery. I will admit and hope you are right though. It would be great if his back injury is a fluke and all this lockout time made him heal 100% It tends to not be like that though for anybody, let alone a pro basketball player... let alone a big man who has to bang down low so much.