jrodmc wrote:

Paladin55 wrote:

tj23 wrote:This team is a little better then some people give it credit for but I think we just might be the new Atlanta Hawks, which is basically what I signed up for when I was for the Melo trade. Now I'm complaining too much since this is what I asked for. Hopefully Kidd and Lin can make our offense run smoother and be more effecient. But Melo needs to be better himself and Amare needs to bounce back strong from his injury.

Yup. We may be in a situation where we have a good enough team to compete against anyone, but never take the final step. We have the kind of team where everything has to be perfect for us to beat the Heat, or maybe even the Nets.

The Lin/Kidd combo will be the key- and Lin has to prove that the promise he showed last year was not a fluke. You have to hope that Kidd's leadership on and off the court will make a difference. He may be our only hope of controlling Anthony's game and getting everyone involved.

As some have mentioned- getting Camby would also be a great move for our rebounding, D, and general team toughness.

Amare bouncing back is more important than Anthony improving, because at this point, you know what you are getting from Anthony and should not expect him to improve his game, IMO. Amare's back, and him being the kind of player he was his first year on the Knicks is a necessity for our success. Anthony's greatest improvement will be if he comes back in the kind of shape he has probably not been in for many years, and maybe his entire NBA career.

How can Stat ever be that player on this Knicks team? The first half of that year, he was all there was. If he had any kind of handle, MDA would have had him running the PNR with himself, for the love of crap!

I don't understand how anyone thinks Stat has to be an MVP candidate on this team for it to be successful.

You are probably right, given the makeup of this team... but can he be a complimentary player at this point? That is really the issue, and why I have never thought the Anthony/Amare pairing was a good one.

Amare cannot play D, is not a fluid passer, and is a below average rebounder for his size and athletic ability. He may not be able to be the kind of complimentary player who can remain in a secondary role and then step us when needed. Guys have made light of Wallace, and not even mentioned the Nyets getting Reggie Evans, but they are the kind of players who are going to be there to do the dirty work that has to be done. These are the kind of players you get to put around your stars. Camby is a good fit for us if we get him, but for some reason I am having vibes that he will end up with the Heat or Nyets.

This team will form around what Lin and Anthony are able to do and not do. Chandler is a good pick and role candidate, like Amare, and you need him as the anchor for your defense. Amare, in his first year for us, was amazing from midrange, but that is what Anthony does, and Amare does not have the range to spread the floor and open things up for Lin/Chandler/Anthony. Shumpert has not yet shown us that he has the consistency in his shot to be a shooting guard who can spread the floor, and who knows what his injury does to his game.

This team, as constituted, has a starting front line that is not going to allow us to beat the best teams in a playoff series, IMO. Too many limiting factors. It will be even worse if Amare's back does not improve, and Anthony does not keep his weight down and tone his body.

Posters can make all the positive comments they want about the makeup of this Knicks team, but there are some serious issues with this roster that are simply not going away no matter how good people feel about this team and what it has "accomplished" in the last 2 years.

Except for Lin, Shumpert, and maybe Harrelson, the Knicks are a team made up of players who are at their prime, or are beginning their decline. This type of player is not going to come to camp with some major improvement to their respective games.

We have limited our draft picks through our trades, and are a good enough team so that we are not going to be getting a lottery talent player over the next few years unless we are lucky and one falls into the high teens and early twenties, where I expect us to be over the next few years.

Logic dictates to me that we will have a pretty good team, but not be good enough to beat the Heat, or even the Nets, if they get Howard (and some filler).

Bonn1997 wrote:

Logic dictates to me that we will have a pretty good team, but not be good enough to beat the Heat, or even the Nets, if they get Howard (and some filler).

Probably not the Bulls either if Rose returns healthy. They were a .750 team with him healthy.

Yup- forgot about them, entirely... but I actually feel pretty good against them if we have Kidd and Camby as additions to the team, and especially if Shumpert can be at 95-100% by the end of the season and be a defensive disrupter.