everyone keeps saying "the Knicks need a point gaurd". While Marbury, Nate, Jamal & Mardy might not be the BEST options. I believe they can be decent enough under the right coaching.

If you watched this team the last 4-5 years you know our main problem is DEFENSE!!!

We need to draft someone who can play D!!!! Unless you think a bayless/mayo type will be a lot better than Jamal Crawford/Nate Robinson... I go Defense all the way.

INTERIOR defense is huge, this team is desperate for a shot blocker waaaaaaaaaaay more than they are a point gaurd. If you can draft a big who can actually play and block some shots (Randolph?, Lopez?) I say do it. I won't be terribly upset with Westbrook because he plays great defense but i'm a little afraid he'll just replace Fred Jones. Best case scenario he turns into our new Sprewell. Perimiter D is also Sorely needed but not more than interior. If your Walsh and u dont think any of the bigs have potential to be great defenders I think the choice is clear for Westbrook. But if we DO take a big who has the potential to be a DEFENDER in this league then i think that would serve is 100x in the long run. God forbid we draft Bayless who turns into Jamal Crawford #2 and the next team drafts Randolph who ends up averaging 2.5 blocks per game for his nba career i'll kill my self.

I was just about to make a post almost on the same thing.

I think no matter what we do with the #6 pick. Draft, trade down, use it to unload Randolph

We must add another or 2 later first rd picks to aquire some interior defenders with potential.

Guys like Thompson, Hardin, Ajinca, Dorsey

You make some great points. However D'Antoni isn't going to focus at all on defense. Remember Diaw was his center for awhile in Phoenix.

i've been saying it all year... our biggest need is a shotblocker & defense in the paint.

What we need is to jettison Marbury, Randolph, Curry, James, and Crawful.

Posted by Ira:

The Knicks need a lot of things. They should look at the players who are available when we draft and pick the best one. Adding a second round purpose pick makes sense. I like Hardin and Thompson. Thompson gives a lot of versatility. He can shoot, board and block shots, but his numbers were against weak competition. Hardin's a tough guy. He's not going to put up big numbers in the nba, but he will board and defend and he won't let anyone push him around.

Just gonna say the same thing. You take a future star like Jerryd Bayless then put guys around him that can play some defense - we already have two in Balkman & Collins - poss. a 3rd in Chandler, trade for Hilton Armstrong, sign Justin Williams, Louis Amundson or Chris Rodgers. Ron Artest remains a possibility. Trade with Sacramento for Shelden Williams (not sure what the heck happen to him but he was a MAJOR interior defender at Duke) and their first rounder, acquire another pick and go after a guy like JaVale McGee for his shot-blocking. You get the star and continue to add the right role players around him. Having said that, if Bayless proves to be unatainable for the Knicks, I probably do draft Anthony Randolph...

The idea that D'Antoni somehow doesn't care about D, is a bit overstated. His teams won an awful lot of games and only came up short against the Spurs who are a championship level team. This year may have been more about the roster change and how it effected the teams ability to defend. The Suns played D, they just excelled at offense. Some teams are like that. I don't believe he's ever had the best team in the West, so why penalize him for not winning it all as if his teams weren't already overachieving?

This team needs a PG in order to make it's offense run as it should. This team should've been one of the better offensive teams but IMO PG play wasn't always up to par. Remember how poorly our guards fed the post or recognized open players? Please don't try to tell me that this team came anywhere close to realizing it's offensive potential. YES defense is paramount to most winning teams, but you've also got to be able to score the ball. We didn't do that efficiently last year and in the future we'll need to have a floor leader to do that.

Posted by playa2:

I 2nd the motion, just watching Paul Pierce waltz thru the fakers defense showed me how much they missed the presence of Andrew Bynum to alter and block shots.

The problem is this draft is guard heavy and lacks any legit Big-defensive prospects. Lopez is an average defender at best, Jordan can be good on the defensive end but he has a long way to go on the other side of the ball. McGee is about 2-3 years away, if at all......We are not going to build this team over night. One piece at a time. If we have to star in the backcourt this year, so be it.