Going into this Knicks’ season, very little was understood as a constant. Would point guard play improve with Raymond Felton, Jason Kidd and Pablo Prigioni? Would the Knicks cobble together reasonable production from shooting guard between J.R. Smith, Ronnie Brewer and Iman Shumpert?

Is Carmelo Anthony a 3? A 4? Both? Neither?

Can Amar’e Stoudemire stay healthy?

Is Marcus Camby still young enough to matter? How about Rasheed Wallace? Kurt Thomas?

Really, the only given was this: the Knicks have Tyson Chandler. He’ll rebound well, he’ll score efficiently, and he’ll play such effective defense that the collective deficiencies on that end of the floor from the rest of the roster, statistically, will disappear.

And now, that presence is in flux, following a knee injury in last night’s win over the Nets.

There were other takeaways from that game. Felton was terrific at times. Prigioni was magical. Both had real issues at the defensive end, as did Chris Copeland, for those hoping he can be a regular contributor. And Mike Woodson got angry with Steve Novak’s defense, which seems odd, because it sure doesn’t look like a question of effort from Novak, more a lack of ability.

But all of these things are on the margins. Tyson Chandler’s M.R.I. will determine if this is a playoff team or not.

Do whatever you normally do to pray for good fortune. The season rests on those results.

Fearless Fan-Based Analysis: Our beloved Knicks can survive November thrashings at the hands of the Nets and Heat on consecutive nights. We can even hang tough through the inevitable four game losing streak while the press goes absolutely crazy with doom and gloom, and the litany of "old" remarks. We can even watch our long lost point guard morph into a hybrid of Derrick Rose and Tiny Archibald in Houston without shedding a tear.

None of it matters until January, when the league starts taking shape and the new roster starts playing in rhythm, or not.

If Anar'e is done, we can cut and paste Kurt, Carmelo and Sheed.

If Tyson is done, we are done... unless Marcus Camby discovers the Fountain of Yoot... which is unlikely.

Hows the mayor?

fishmike wrote:Knicks will have a LOT of bad breaks this year. Basketball karma. We had the best sports story short of Eli smoking pretty Tom again in Linsanity and the Knicks dumped on it. For once, the KNicks found a player on their roster who was a good kid, who galvanized his teammates and put together one of the more memorable runs this town has seen in awhile but our turd of an owner decided to stick with the winners he already has.

Hows the mayor?

Yeah, but be honest, after Lins performance in the preseason (and it is only preseason), are you still as 100% sure of him than you were or is there a little bit of doubt creeping in?

smackeddog wrote:

fishmike wrote:Knicks will have a LOT of bad breaks this year. Basketball karma. We had the best sports story short of Eli smoking pretty Tom again in Linsanity and the Knicks dumped on it. For once, the KNicks found a player on their roster who was a good kid, who galvanized his teammates and put together one of the more memorable runs this town has seen in awhile but our turd of an owner decided to stick with the winners he already has.

Hows the mayor?

Yeah, but be honest, after Lins performance in the preseason (and it is only preseason), are you still as 100% sure of him than you were or is there a little bit of doubt creeping in?

He was our best PG
He was our best prospect
He galvanized the team for a pretty wild run.
He was humble and almost annoyingly owned everything that went wrong and praised teammates.
He was a gym rat.
He came out of nowhere.

These were the reasons I was excited about this guy we let go for nothing.

I also saw Lin/Shump as the perfect combo. Shump a lock down defender who can score, Lin the better shooter and floor general. It would have been nice but as we know there is only ball and the guy who owns that doesnt like to share much.

I would be equally concerned about Lin as Melo this preseason. Melo comes off a season shooting a lousy 43% and he only played 53 games. Whats he shooting in preseason? 35%? Looks to me like Melo is shot. To bad we used the amnesty on Billups.

Panos wrote:

NUPE wrote:Chandler simply has a bruised knee according to the most recent reports.

Isn't that what they said about Amare's knee just last week? Now its a cyst? Why are we like victims of domestic violence, keep getting lied to, then beaten down, lied to again, and keep coming back for more? Sheeeit, I'm checking into rehab.

Amare bruised his knee but came back from it and played. He reported pain in the knee while watching the game in Albany and was sent back to NY for further testing. I think Amare's situation is a bit more concerning. I don't think the Knick medical staff expected Amare to have cyst. He had a bone bruise and the cyst was discovered when he had further pain. Hopefully Tyson is just bruised. Amare had a lot more warning signs that his knee was arthritic.

“The only injury that we are concerned about right now is Amare’s,” Anthony said. “We know Tyson’s is not that bad, we have a week to get him back. Rasheed is looking extremely good in practice. J.R. and Camby are doing what they’ve got to do to be back for that first game.

“When you look at the big picture, we have guys that are coming back. The only problem for us is missing out on one of our main guys, which is Amar’e.”

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/basketball/knicks/knicks-expect-chandler-ready-season-opener-article-1.1192636#ixzz2ANlUm3Nr

I really like this team once we get everyone healthy. It's gonna be so deep that no one should get burned out like we've seen in the past.