Looking at the NBA standings right now, the Knicks sit near the bottom with the 9th worst record. However, between 9 and 5 (Portland) are only 5 games.

As it is now:
5: Portland 24-24
6: Gold St. 26-45
7: Milwauk. 27-44
8: Toronto 29-42
9: NYK 29-41

BRIGGS brought this up yesterday and I find it intriguing. Why hasn't the order come down from Isiah to stop the season. Don't tank, but try to win with your young players. Marbury should be playing no more than 30 minutes a game. There's no reason to just have him in there lighting teams up for the sake of it. The guy's a bull, let him rest.

Play Sweetney 35 minutes a game (or until he fouls out), play Ariza, play Butler, and let's see what we have with these guys. The Knicks are bad enough to finish as low as 5, but every position they slide up helps. It's do-able to get to that 5th worst record (a position that has won the lottery several times, including the Rockets the year they got Yao.)

It's nonsensical to just leave the best guys in and play their hearts out.

Also, the Knicks have 3 draft picks this year (their own, the Suns via the Spurs, and the Rockets pick. They lost their own second rounder to Atlanta, who then traded it and I don't even know who has it now).

The Marc Berman article stated Isiah will be looking at centers and guards (can we foresee an Allan Houston retirement. Clearly he can't play at 100% anymore.)

What guards and C's would you be interested in? Obviously, for C Bogut and that 7-3 Lithuanian are the top of the pack. I was also really impressed with Channing Frye. He played a great game against Illinois the other day, and reminds me of a poor man's Marcus Camby.

For 2-guards, I'd imagine this is what they'll spend the 2nd pick on unless Isiah really likes one in the lottery, I like McCants, Hodge, Dee Brown, Francisco Garcia, and Daniel Ewing. I'd imagine Isiah just wants a 3-guard rotation of Crawford, Marbury, and one other guy, and he's trying to find that guy in the draft. I'd love Garcia or Hodge. Both are NYC guys who are tough players and have played big time college BB for a while.

Those are my thoughts, what do you think.

I wouldn't mind the Knicks taking any of the players you named above.

But whoever Isiah decides to draft, I just hope that it is someone that captured the fans the way that Trevor Ariza has

Crap...I had a longer reply to you but my browser crashed and I lost it. Basically I was gonna say its gonna be really hard to move down in the draft order, 1) because 3.5+ games is a lot to make up with only 11-12 games remaning, 2) Not only that, the teams that are worse than us really are bad teams, are probably trying to jockey for draft position as well, and may have harder schedules than us (ours is a bit soft).

As far as draft prospects...there are discussions of them all over the board. Any of the centers, Green and McCants are fair game for our first pick. I agree Frye played well in the Elite 8 game, but he was soft in many games this season, and might not be more than competent...still worth picking in the middle of rd.1. Also agree we need a shooter. THough Garcia might drop to the end of the round, but its looking unlikely now. Hodge is not a shooter type, but I like him, and he could be a Marquis Daniels type...