Q: If Jimmy Dolan called to offer you the Knicks GM job, would you accept it? Could you possibly take a job where you would need to go against the Celtics? If you did take the job, what would be your long-term plans to make the team a contender?
-- Name accidentally deleted, Woodland Hills, Calif.


SG: Are you kidding? What would be better than running an NBA team? Name me a job. I'd turn on the Celtics faster than Mitt Romney switched his stance on abortion. Besides, I play with the Trade Machine all day, anyway. Now I'd be getting paid for it? (Wait, I get paid to play with the Trade Machine as it is -- scratch that joke.) Anyway, to answer your question, I would have five goals as the Knicks GM:

1. Win over Mike and the Mad Dog with as much cookies, candy and Diet Coke as possible. I'd need those guys in my corner from the get-go, even if it means agreeing to a weekly segment where Dog repeatedly calls me "Billy" and Mike says things like, "Bill, you have a huge, hah-yuge rebuilding job ahead of you right now..."

2. Take the normally mean-spirited New York media out to a fancy lunch every other Friday so they'd feel bad about ripping me if any of my moves didn't work out. I'm convinced that every newspaper writer can be bought off with free food and free clothes. They can't resist either. It's in their DNA.

3. Stay away from Kathleen Decker and make sure I'm never alone in a room or an elevator with her.

4. Don't acquire any big contracts that extend past the 2010 season. Why? Because we need to create enough cap space to woo LeBron when he becomes a free agent in the summer of 2010. Look, the Knicks aren't winning a title for the rest of the decade. It's not happening. So why not be up front about it? If you took the Knicks' GM job and told the fans over and over again, "Just be patient, I want to be a big-time free agent player in the summer of 2010 and I'm not doing anything to screw that up," the Knicks' fans are smart enough to understand the logic behind this.

5. To that same end, I'd pursue Shaq (expires in 2010) because Miami is hemorrhaging money and needs to dump salary. For instance, this trade works after Dec. 15: Eddy Curry (less than half the price tag of Shaq for the same stats), Stephon Marbury (expires in 2009) and Fred Jones' expiring deal for Jason Williams' expiring deal and $82 million worth of Shaq and Mark Blount (both of whom expire in 2010).

If you're running Miami, you say yes because you're dumping $20 million in salary after the 2009 season AND saving $11 million this season ($5.5 million in salary plus an equal amount of luxury tax money) without affecting this year's team. As for the Knicks, they don't care about losing more money -- as we witnessed the past four years -- and the double-barrelled good will of acquiring Shaq and dumping the sullen Marbury/Curry combo would diffuse the fan base's bitterness by about 35 percent. Maybe Shaq isn't Shaq anymore, but he's not completely washed up yet, and it would still feel like a bigger "event" when he's out there ... and sticking Shaq in the Big Apple would be fun, right? More importantly, dumping Curry's contract creates enough cap room after 2010 to make the aforementioned run at LeBron. Who's the only guy that matters here.

To recap, here's my plan for saving the Knicks: Grease the media; trade for Shaq; be up front with the fans; stay away from any long-term deals past 2010; stick every egg in the LeBron Basket. Vote for Simmons to save the Knicks!