First and most importantly: What do the Knicks do from now til the end of the season.

I'm going to start out with the assumption that Earl Barron will be a Knick very soon and that he will be nearly as effective as he was last year. With that our starting lineup should look something like this:

C: Earl Barron
PF: Amare Stoudemire
SF: Carmelo Anthony
SG: Landry Fields
PG: Chauncey Billups

Backups:

C: Ronny Turiaf when healthy, otherwise Shelden Williams
F/G: Shawne Williams
G/F: Bill Walker
G/F: Corey Brewer
SG/PG: Toney Douglas

Crunchtime Lineup:

C: Amare Stoudemire
PF: Carmelo Anthony
SF: Shawne Williams
SG: Landry Fields
PG: Chauncey Billups

At first glance I believe that the starters and crunchtime players are somewhat better now than before the trade. Melo/Shawne > Chandler/Gallo, and I believe that Billups over Felton is a slight gain. Billups runs the pick-and-roll better and is a better shooter than Felton. As for Melo/Williams over Chandler/Gallo... I loved, still love, both of them; but, Melo by himself is better than either one of them. I will miss and will root for both of them, but as of right now, I believe that these two units are better than they were. As for the backups, oof, there's not much to say there. We have a C/PF in Turiaf; a SF in Shawne; three SG's in Walker, Brewer, and Douglas; and no real backup PG. The bench has unquestionably gotten worse, we'll just have to hope that Amare and Billups will be able to handle the workload that they'll be getting.

Second: The Knicks after this season.

Over the next five years I believe that the Knicks have first round picks in 2011 (Houston has the right to swap), 2013, and 2015. Houston owns the pick in 2012 and Denver has 2014. Compared to the last decade, having 60% of their first round picks is probably and improvement. As for this year's draft, it's going to suck. No one is coming this year, it might be the worst draft since the Kenyon Martin draft. If we're lucky, we might be able to get Jimmer Fredette, but honestly, I don't believe in his pro prospects at all. More importantly, will we be able to sign anyone? Answer: Who know. With the CBA up this offseason, it's pretty irresponsible for anyone to be making predictions on whether or not we'll be able to improve through free agency. There are multiple questions coming up, including: hard or soft salary cap; increase or decreased salary cap; salary structure; franchise tag(?) (I say no but that's just a guess); and a multitude of other questions. None of us or them have any real idea of what's coming. The one prediction I will make is this: in 2012, if the Knicks are able to sign Chris Paul or Deron Williams outright then you will see one of them playing for NY.

Third and what you've all been waiting for: Do I believe this is an overall good trade and did we overpay?

First of all, I do believe we overpaid. There has not been any real indication that Melo was willing to sign with any other team other than NY. It's possible that if Dolan wasn't such a blowharded idiot that we could have kept 2/3 of Chan/Gallo/Moz maybe replacing one of them with Douglas or Walker. We probably outbid ourselves but what can you do with the dumbest owner in professional sports? That being said, Amare and Melo are two of the best 12-15 players in the NBA and should be for the foreseeable future. Here's a list of players that are better than at least one of the two right now:

Lebron James
Dwayne Wade
Dwight Howard
Kobe Bryant
Kevin Durant
Derrick Rose
Chris Paul (when healthy)

As good as:

Deron Williams
Pau Gasol
Dirk Nowitzki
Chris Bosh

In the near future(?):

Russell Westbrook
John Wall
Blake Griffin
Rajon Rondo

This would be the first time since at least the 70's, 40 years ago, that we can make that claim. I believe it's true even expanding it out to the top 20-25 players in the league. It has been at least 4 decades since we've had to players of this caliber on the same team.

In conclusion, I believe that even though the Knicks probably bid against themselves, we still got the better end of the deal; and no matter what we can all agree on one thing:

Let's
Go
Knicks!!!