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Knicks May Have Blown It On First Day Of Free Agency

By Matt Schumacher NBA
Jul 022010
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The Knicks did little on the first day of free agency except vainly attempting to lure LeBron yet again. In doing so, they may very well have ruined the team’s chance at the greatest free agent class ever. Everything points to LeBron being a lost cause, yet the Knicks still poor resources and energy towards him, although they are needed elsewhere. Rudy Gay, a young upstart on the Knicks radar, is staying a Grizzly after signing an 80 million dollar contract with them yesterday, so you can scratch him off the list, which leaves the Knicks with Joe Johnson and Amare Stoudemire still availabe, but not for long.

Gay was the most underrated player in this year's free agency

The Hawks and Joe are reportedly very close to a deal that would land Joe with a max contract and Stoudemire is being touted and recruited by many teams now, including the Cleveland Cavaliers whose supporting cast blows the Knicks away. None the less, of the three Stoudemire is the most likely to come to the Big Apple and reunite with his long time coach Mike D’Antoni, but I fear the Knicks made a huge mistake by not heavily pursuing the other two.

Gay has already been crossed off, this man may be next

With Gay off the list and Joe soon to be as well, the Knicks have found themselves in a blunder. Dirk Nowitzki, another top free agent, appears to have no interest in leaving Dallas, LeBron, Bosh and Wade all seem to be coniving something amongst each other, and after them the talent level drops dramatically. The Knicks need to make a move and they need to make a move soon, or they may blow this years free agency.

If Joe signs with Atlanta, and he is very close to doing so, the Knicks will have lost out on the most underrated superstar in the league. If Stoudemire signs elsewhere as well, well, the Knicks may as well just quit, suffer another dreadful season, and hope to cash in on Carmelo Anthony next year. That’s worst case, though, and hopefully will not happen, but none the less, it seems a growing possibility.

Stoudemire is a must-get for the Knicks

Right now the top 5 available are LeBron, Bosh, Wade, Joe and Stoudemire. LeBron and Bosh appear to have interest in Chicago, Wade will more than likely stay in Miami or follow where LBJ and Bosh go, leaving the Knicks with their best two options of Joe and Amare, two options that they may lose unless they take their focus off LeBron and towards them. The way I see it, and the way many Knicks fans see it, if we don’t get any of those top 5 this free agency is a failure. Hopefully, though, that won’t be the case, right?

All of that is worst possible case, though, and who knows, perhaps something amazing happens. Best case, we get LeBron and Bosh and head into next season as Eastern Conference favorites fielding a front court of two superstar all-pros. Unfortunately, that happening appears ever so slim at the moment so here’s another scenario. Joe Johnson flies from the Hawks and heads up to the Big Apple where the Knicks offer him a max contract. Stoudemire than follows quickly after and the Knicks soon end up with two allstar players. Although they aren’t LeBron and Bosh, they’re certainly better than nothing.

In all, I deeply, deeply hope that the Knicks did not make a mistake yesterday. I am a Knicks fan and I want nothing but the best for the team. This is their chance, though, at becoming a championship caliber team over night and the fear of them having blown it is something I, nor any Knicks fan, can ignore. Time will tell and we will see how the remainder of free agency pans out, but for now it appears the Knicks have gotten off on the wrong foot.

8 Responses to “Knicks May Have Blown It On First Day Of Free Agency”

  1. Matt Schumacher says:
    July 7, 2010 at 7:11 pm

    Jake, thanks for the great comments, you should write for the website! We have plenty of regions open and you would be great at it. Email this address contribute@netdugout.com with whatever questions you may have, and be sure to reference my name as well. That goes for anyone thinking about writing for the site!

  2. Jake says:
    July 6, 2010 at 9:09 am

    Matt, I am sorry for being rude I have friends who are huge Nets and Bulls fans so I have been in debates for the past few weeks. Amare is now a Knick. My gut is that Lebron lands in either New York or Cleveland and here is why. Chris Bosh is not the marketable player that Lebron James or Dwayne Wade are, so Bosh wants a sign and trade to get the extra 30million (something Lebron or Dwayne can make up for with endorsements) If Bosh is interested in going to Chicago The Raptors would want to take a quality player back, I think they would ask for Noah and a few draft picks. The Bulls really like Noah and do not want to trade him. This will be a problem especially being that Lebron wants to make a hasty decision. Even if Chicago agrees to a deal like this would Lebron really want to go to a team with Rose, Deng, Bosh and Jordans shadow over Douglas, Wilson, Amare, Walker, Gallinari? Maybe but doubtful. In terms of the legacy and money that Lebron craves, he can get no more of it in New York. If he went to New York and won a championship, that will make his legacy greater than anything else he can do. Better than winning in Cleveland, Chicago, Miami. To turn a historical franchise in the best city that is going through a 30 year drought and 9 straight losing seasons into a champion would immediately make his legacy great. In 30 years if Lebron doesn’t win a ring he will be looked back at as a Julius Erving type player, amazing ground-breaking athlete, inflated numbers, (see 79-80 ie. 27pts 7reb 5ast 2stl 2blk) If he DOES win in New York he will be talked about with Jordan, Kobe, Shaq, Wilt, Russel as one of the greatest players in history. Jordan will always be Chicago’s golden boy and Lebron will never be able to shake that. Miami is looking like it is getting no one. Cleveland’s old players are now a year older and the nets will always be secondary to the knicks. Just ask the Islanders. When a superstar player has a choice of the Rangers or Islanders or Lakers or Clippers, who do you think they would choose. Lebron James’ camp had a meeting about very specific cap questions and Amare. Lebron went to his camp in Akron sporting none other than a Yankee hat… New York state of mind?

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  6. Matt Schumacher says:
    July 2, 2010 at 1:12 pm

    Jake – Well that’s my opinion, and if yours are different so be it, thanks for commenting though, good or bad it’s fun to see what other’s think.

  7. Amare Stoudemire / Stoudemire and the Knicks are “working on 5-year deal worth nearly $100 million”, Yahoo! Sports’ Adrian | Sporty Twits says:
    July 2, 2010 at 12:59 pm

    [...] CBC.caKnicks May Have Blown It On First Day Of Free AgencyNetDugout… so you can scratch him off the list, which leaves the Knicks with Joe Johnson and Amare Stoudemire still availabe, but not for long. …Knicks' plan: LeBron, Amare and JohnsonESPN (blog)Lawrence: Cap makes Knicks forecast Sun-nyNew York Daily NewsIf I Were The Knicks GM, I'd…KnickerBlogger (blog)Inside Pulse (blog) -Detroit Free Press -Rotoworld.comall 5,086 news articles » [...]

  8. Jake says:
    July 2, 2010 at 12:57 pm

    This article was terrible. I am not going to blindly bash you either. First of all, are you actually implying that Lebron is a lost cause??? really? So on the first day of free agency you don’t think the Knicks should have bothered as much as they did in trying to sign the guy they have been clearing space for, for 2 years? You think the Knicks should sign Joe Johnson to a max contract?! Thank god Atlanta is dumb enough to sign Joe until he is 35. he is not underrated at all. he is actually almost overrated. he did AWFUL in the playoffs, hes not a point guard, hes too short to be a 2. hes 29 years old! hes a scorer. And players like him fade off very quickly. Look at 2 guards who play like him. You ever heard of Allan Houston? Can you say second coming of him? Look at Atlanta’s talent. Josh Smith, Marvin Williams, Mike Bibby, Al Horford, and according to you this “top” free agent deserving of a max. The Hawks are never a threat to go deep in the playoffs and it is because Joe Johnson is not great. He isn’t deserving of 20 Million this year let alone in 5 years. Onto my next point. The cavaliers supporting cast “blows the Knicks away” is one of the funniest things I have heard all day. A 38 year old Shaq who is a detriment to the team, Delonte West who is a maniac, Z who is old and lumbering, Jamison who is a terrible defender and in my opinion made the Cavs worse. The only pieces on that team that I would want on my team are Anderson Verajo, JJ Hickson (maybe) and Mo Williams who is a solid guy to play with Lebron, but not a guy I would want running my team and being the primary ball handler. The Knicks have up and comer Danillo who averaged 15 pts as a 21 year old European which is more than Dirk can say, Wilson who is in the mold of Jeff Green and Luol Deng, Bill Walker is great off the bench and shoots the ball at an unbelievable percentage and Toney Douglas who per 36 minutes averaged 16 4 4 as a rookie! What did Mo Williams average as a rookie per 36? 13 3 3. This year per 36 he averaged 17 3 5. Toney Douglas is not too far behind. So have fun with the old supporting cast of the Cavs, i’ll take the young up and coming Knicks players. Oh and the 12 million that comes off the books next year when Eddy Curry leaves. Sorry if I disagree about the Cavs supporting cast “blowing the Knicks away.” You also say that the worst case is the Knicks not being able to cash in this year and hoping to sign Carmelo next year? Whats wrong with that? Would you rather get locked into a long term deal with a player that doesn’t deserve it or sign some midlevel players now like Raymond Felton and a Tyrus Thomas, be a 7th or 8 seed and cash in on Melo next year with our cap space? If the opportunity is there you take it but what Knicks don’t want to do is get locked into bad contracts like they just were. You than go on to say “Wade will more than likely stay in Miami or follow where LBJ and Bosh go” … UHM he cant follow them anywhere the Heat are the only team that are close to being able to sign all three. They would have to come to Miami. You need to do a lot more research before you put out a dumb article like this. Whats your pay I’m interested in taking your job?

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