First things first. I'm just praying Isiah isn't involved in any of this and that Dolan and Walsh are on the same page in terms of this.

As for the roster, as now constructed:

Pros
-We now have a scorer that we can go to at any point of the game and we don't have to worry about him in terms of this... ever. No confidence problems, no consistency problems. Melo can score in any way his heart desires and we can give it to him in clutch situations. This will make things that much better than Amar'e.

-Believe it or not, our rebounding has improved. Gallo sucked in this area and Wilson was OK but he underachieved a little. Carmello is going to provide a significant upgrade in this area.. although Felton is doing better than Billups here.

-Leadership. We have 3 bonafide captains now and a PG who has won a championship and made it to the conference finals numerous times.

-I don't see us jacking up nearly as many threes anymore. If we do, I am going to have to say fire Mike D'Antoni. That's not what these new players are about.

-We may be improved defensively, on the perimeter, but that's up in the air.

-I don't have to worry about Felton coming to camp out of shape. This was a giant concern of mine from the beginning.

Cons
-Losing Raymond Felton sucks ass. However, while I think Felton had the better stats, Billups is a better player. He's smarter, but fluid... but Felton was younger and improving, so it's going to hurt losing that youth. This could go either way in the next couple of years.

-Our frontcourt defense is going to suck ass. There's just no sugarcoating it. It's going to be bad. Turiaf is going to have to suck it up with these little injuries and we need Sheldon to step it up ASAP as well. Amar's too, defensively. No ifs and/or buts.

-Probably a very weak bench unless everyone steps up and overachieves. I think it's possible but it's not going to be easy. I'm curious to see who is going to get the minutes.

DON'T RESIGN DONNIE! STAT AWAY ISIAH!!!

knicks1248 wrote:

-I don't see us jacking up nearly as many threes anymore. If we do, I am going to have to say fire Mike D'Antoni. That's not what these new players are about.

Your kidding right, the staple of MDA system is the 3 ball, he has said it a million times..If your not a good three point shooter, you will be soon enough, the coaching staff will devote hrs..

Please with this IT talk...He's dolans boy, he's been behind the seens since DAY 1...people forget that Walsh hired Thomas to coach the pacers, and he still had a great amount of respect for thomas( theres no riff) then bird fired him for personal( although he would beg to differ) reasons..

And like I said, I'm just hoping against hope it isn't true. I don't want to see Walsh leave and Isiah return.

I concur with you on Losing Mozgov and I add Gallo to that.

I also concur with you about Isiah. If DW is still in control then I have more faith in the organization. If not, they are screwed.

Let's see what happens. But more size is needed and Carter and Balkman need to be cut.

Here's why:
* We have *3* proven stars now.
Stoudemire & Carmelo are obvious. Billups, at least statistically, is performing at more or less as high a level as he ever has. As good as Felton was for the Knicks, there was always some doubt that he was less-than-elite, that he was too small (barely 6'), that he never won in the playoffs and only had 1 .500+ season in his years in the league to his credit. Billups was the best player on the championship Pistons - he's transformed himself into winner (he's got that Sam Cassell-like quality where he can will teams to win), he's got real size at 6'3", and while he's not young, he's a late bloomer that doesn't overly rely on his athleticism - so he's well preserved. (this article agrees with me: http://www.postingandtoasting.com/2011/2/21/2005640/chauncey-billups-appreciation-discussion-post)

* Landry becomes the clear #4 scorer.
The Knicks previously had 3 players at more or less the same level - Fields, Gallo, Chandler - all capable of having big games, but in the end, you didn't get consistent scoring performance out of any of them mostly because they were competing against each other for the same shots. I'd argue that there's a little bit of addition by subtraction. With the other two out of the picture, I wouldn't be surprised if Fields averaged 15ppg for the rest of the season.

* Williams & Walker provide more than enough 3pt shooting.
Gallo's main contribution, his outside shot, was not very consistent, particularly after coming back from the knee injury. From what I recall, he shot below 30% since the return. Williams shoots as well if not better, and while he's not the player Gallo is overall, we're not asking him to replace Gallo - we're asking him to be himself alongside Carmelo, who is overall a better player than Gallo.

* Shelden Williams becomes the best rebounder (per minute).
Williams's per-minute rebounding are better than that of any Knick on the team, far better than that of Mosgov. As a Duke player, he's another high BBall IQ guy to have on the floor - at worst, another Jason Collins who can set some killer screens. He's not as big as Mosgov, but while we feel like we're losing potential (TRUE!) with Mosgov, he wasn't lighting things up this season - he had 1, maybe 2 quality games all year.

* Room opens up for Earl Barron's return.
Either Anthony Carter or Roger Mason Jr becomes waiver material. We'll have an opportunity to get a shooting big man who excelled under D'Antoni last year...

* The addition of Corey Brewer
Back in college, some had pegged Brewer as the next Scottie Pippen. Maybe not, but if anyone's going to showcase him (or expose him)... it'll be D'Antoni.