I know its only 2 preseaon games... but Curry is averaging around 20pts, staying out of foul trouble and playing big minutes...

Is the lottery pick still a lock? My Greg Oden fantasies are getting fainter...


Oh yeah.... and Thomas was a stud against the grizzlies... what is he averaging 2? 3 blocks a game?

I'm not counting on Greg Oden to be honest, even if they are awful. Even if they are a borderline playoff team, this draft is so deep that you could get an Al Horford or Josh McRoberts. Of course, I'd prefer we get a top 3 pick and get Noah or Oden, but with the depth of this draft, the only drop off is Oden and everybody else IMO. We need to get a legit 4 or 5 scoring type stud though with this pick IMO.

I wouldn't worry about it. Anyone can look good in 2 or 3 games, especially when the starters are only playing roughly 40-50 percent of the games, and most guys aren't really going at it with all they have. These games are only slightly more telling than a summer league game, a lot of mediocre starters and bench players will look good if they have any kind of talent.

Both of those guys have always had questions about their effort, not their talent. That doesn't tend to change unless it's a contract year.

Also, there will be plenty of talent in the next draft, we don't necessarily need the Knicks to get #1 (though it definitely would be nice). They have way too many shooters and not enough big guys to get out of the lottery.

Agreed, you have to stop hoping for Oden. If the Bulls get the first pick somehow, then great, but there are plenty of other great players.

Spencer Hawes
Brandan Wright
Josh McRoberts
Hasheem Thabeet (don't know why, but I have a feeling this guy will be very good, even though he's raw now)
Yi Jianlian
Al Horford
Tiago Splitter
Roy Hibbert

and if there was a possibility I would have no problem with taking Kevin Durant or Thaddeus Young and trading someone, because contract disputes will come into play sometime.

What's scary is that those are only the post players.

Supposedly Jianlian isn't as good as once thought, but the others will probably be solid.

And yes, I'd LOVE to have Kevin Durant on this team. That guy looks like a future superstar. He's like a longer and more athletic Luol Deng. I can kind of see the Kevin Garnett comparisons too, though he seems to be more perimeter-oriented and not quite as fierce as KG. We have a lot of guys that kind of fit that mold, but IMO he will be better than any of the guys we have.

I have fantasies about Durant, the guy might be a God.

Viktor Khryapa and Andre Barett are also playing really well in pre-season.

I saw Jianlian during the FIBA Championships, and he did impress me with his athleticism and height. Still a bit of a project and needs to be stronger, but there is a lot of potential there still, although not as much as some of the other post players.

Kevin Garnett is a power forward with some nice perimeter skills, but think of Durant as a 6-10 shooting guard. Just think of the matchup problems.

Oh, and I will jump on the Thabeet bandwagon for now. 7-3 and 265 pounds. That's crazy size! Also, his profile (new comer with great size and high learning curve) just seems eerily similar to some great big guys of the past twenty years one from the Virgin Islands, and one coming out of Nigeria and a member of the Phi Slamma Jamma.

Who says all those players are going to come out? Do you think all those big men will come out to be mid-first rounders when they could go to school another year and be 10 ten locks.

Anyway, I think Curry is going to have a good year, and might once again lead the league in FG%. With Thomas as coach he will get the best players on the court (not the best attitudes). Thomas is out to prove the world wrong.

Don't forget, the Knicks do have some talented players. David Lee is also having a great preseason.

From day one I never thought the Knicks would be as bad this year as last year. I really think there came a point last year when Larry Brown said to hell with it and decided being stubborn was more important then winning.

Look for Curry and Crawford to have good years (since they were Thomas's prized acquisitions). The injury to Jeffries hurts in the short term but they are pretty deep at the F position.

Curry
Frye
Rose
Crawford
Marbury

Renaldo Blakman (has looked good. Seems to be a fundamentally sound all around player)
Ddavid Lee (has looked good)
Steve Francis (blows but who knows Thomas might get him to produce)
Jared Jeffries (good player once he gets healthy)
Nate Robinson (good back-up guard)
Quentin Richardson (has looked a lot better)

I can only hope that the Knicks have a couple of key injuries and that management fires Thomas early in the season b/c I think the Knicks could end up not even being in the worst 8 teams record wise.

There is no denying they have talent. It just depends on how it all comes together. But I really like the Curry/Frye combination and I think Crawford will have a better year.

Yeah, Skiles said today in the paper that Barrett might actually make the team, which is a shock to me. He has looked good though.

Most of these guys will be gone by the mid-first though, so you will see many of them in the draft. It's a very post heavy draft, with only a few perimeter players expected to go early. Plus money-wise there isn't that big a difference between picks 10 and 16 or so, so unless you have top-5 potential in the future (some of them do, but so do the perimeter players) it probably makes sense to go. Assessments on their draft status:

Splitter is in regardless, he'll probably go in the 2nd half of the top 10 or the late lottery.

Oden, Durant, Noah, and McRoberts would be pretty much top 5 locks, so it's highly likely they'll be in the draft.

Horford and Wright are probable top-10 picks, so chances are good that they will be in.

Thabeet, Hawes, and Hibbert are projected to go somewhere in the late-lottery to mid-first right now. They could all move up to top 10 or lottery status with a big year though. Yianlian is probably a mid-first unless he kicks some serious butt in workouts. Jermareo Davidson also could sneak up pretty high, and he's a senior. So that's one guy that is definitely in and 4 others that are maybe 50-50 (probably higher, but I'm being conservative).

So that probably leaves you with a minimum of 7 pretty strong post prospects and a fairly strong possibility of 3-4 others being in the draft. Plus with a couple of other perimeter guys with talent coming out like Julian Wright, Chase Buddinger, Jeff Green, Ronald Steele, and Marcus Williams, there's a good chance we could get one of them even if New York just misses the playoffs.

However, that doesn't seem all that likely. They do have some talent, but they also have a lot of ballhogs that are team cancers, and a lack of strong defenders. When you allow 102 points per game, it's hard to win consistently. Guys like Marbury, Francis, Crawford, Rose and Richardson simply can't be as effective as they normally would because of the presence of all of those other similar guys. That's 5 shoot-first guards. Maybe if they traded Marbury for Nash or Kidd it could work, but that obviously isn't going to happen. They were awful last year with virtually the same roster, so I don't see them improving THAT much, though a 10 game improvement is possible.

I like this idea he has shown good decision making skills and has some poise to his game. Might be better then Luke, who I like also however...

luke hasn't played well at all AND heduplicates marty. How many do nothing 7 fters do we need on the end of the bench

barrett has played great, but unless hinrich or duhon has a lenghty injury period he'll never see the active roster.

I say cut both. I hope barrett lands somewhere else in the league, bc he really deserves it. Leave the 15th spot open if a more skilled big gets cut from another team.

Oops, Thabeet was ruled ineligible for this season according to ESPN. That'll hurt the old draft stock...

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http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/news/story?id=2638177