Holy sh!t, is this really how the rest of the league views us!! Talk about damning with faint praise. Just seems like a really really REALLY bitter motherf**ker wrote this.
Knicks Back To Being A Real NBA Franchise
SportingNews
3 hours, 20 minutes ago
The New York Knicks set themselves up for failure, or at least disappointment, this summer. Their two-year drive to clear enough cap space to sign two max-contract superstars smacked of desperation, begging, and various other unsavory emotions.
The team simply seemed weak. Their dream of landing two-thirds of the James/Wade/Bosh troika essentially remained a pipe dream founded on the belief that superstar NBA players cannot have fun or become global icons in any city other than New York. That line of reasoning has always been tremendously faulty, but it was all the Knicks had to stand on. And now that they’ve hit the summer of 2010, the differences between them and the rest of the free-agent suitors have become stark.
To put it simply, the Knicks are a very bad basketball team. They don’t defend, have only one player who even approaches All-Star level in David Lee(notes) (and he’s likely heading elsewhere this summer) and are still trying to clean off the stench of the Isiah Thomas era. They’re a team in need of lots of help, and players like LeBron James(notes) and Dwyane Wade(notes) don’t go to those teams unless they’re drafted by them.
Yes, the Knicks have met twice with LeBron and his management team and still maintain some hope of landing this summer’s top prize. But the odds are slim, and Donnie Walsh and Mike D’Antoni have to know it. What once seemed like a summer that could transform the franchise has turned into one of reclamation, not becoming an instant championship contender.
The Knicks are simply not on the same level as the Bulls, Cavs, Heat, or even Nets, with their new ownership and bright future in Brooklyn. The situation in New York is dire in comparison, with little hope for a championship given the other players currently on the roster.
Of course, New York has already made their first move of the offseason in picking up Amare Stoudemire. Amare is a flawed player with questionable, although perhaps underrated, defensive abilities and surprisingly middling rebounding given his size, strength, and athleticism. If he is the Knicks’ big pickup of the summer, then this is still a team with lots of needs to get to a championship level.
Yet it’s a start. And while Amare is no LeBron or Wade, he is still a peerless scorer among big men who should be able to average somewhere around 28 ppg as the Knicks’ top option. It’s almost certain that Stoudemire will play at an All-Star level for New York and help them to challenge for the playoffs along with any other solid players they manage to pick up this summer.
Contending for a playoff spot was not the Knicks’ goal when free agency started last Thursday. They wanted to contend for a championship, like all teams. But this team was simply in no position to realize that dream, no matter how much the summer of 2010 promised. The Isiah Thomas era turned the Knicks into something beyond simply a bad team. They were a laughingstock, more fodder for late-night comedy shows than a team worth discussing in real basketball terms.
What the Amare Stoudemire deal does, as explained here by Sean Deveney, is to start the franchise on the long path back to respectability. The Knicks are no longer a team in disarray, but a squad that can win games, give opponents their best shot every night, and be discussed in terms of what they do on the court rather than in the front office.
That’s a major step, even if it doesn’t immediately translate to gobs of wins. With more moves, though, the Knicks would be even closer. If a rumored trade for Tony Parker(notes) develops, that would give Mike D’Antoni a much-needed lightning quick point guard to run the show. Add another scorer, and you have a real core in place to make noise in the East.
Again, this isn’t a championship team and might not be for years. But it was always a little odd for a team that hasn’t won a championship in more than 35 years to expect an instant contender forged in the fires of the summer. Unless a franchise gets lucky in the draft, building a championship team is a long, arduous process. What the Knicks have done this summer is to get that process started in concrete terms instead of pie-in-the-sky fantasies. With or without another star, the New York Knicks have reentered NBA reality.
More from Sporting News: NBA Running Free Agency Rumor Post: July 6
7/6/2010 7:16 PM LAST EDITED: 7/6/2010 7:20 PM
