http://sports.espn.go.com/new-york/nba/news/story?id=5367965 By Chris Sheridan ESPN.com Archive The New York Knicks' consolation prize after missing out on LeBron James will be point guard Raymond Felton. Two league sources told ESPN.com that the Charlotte Bobcats' unrestricted free agent reached an agreement in principle Friday on the broad parameters of a contract. The length of the deal has not yet been agreed upon, but Felton will earn a starting salary in the $7 million range. Felton was widely considered the top free-agent point guard available in this summer's superstar-laden market. One of the other top free-agent playmakers, Steve Blake, came off the market earlier this week when he agreed to a four-year, $16 million deal with the Los Angeles Lakers. The Bobcats selected Felton fifth overall in the 2005 NBA draft, and he has career averages of 13.3 points, 6.4 assists and 1.4 steals per game. He's proved to be durable, appearing in at least 78 games in each of his five seasons as Charlotte's starting point guard, and should bring stability to the Knicks' backcourt. Felton joins Amare Stoudemire as the Knicks' two big free-agent signings of the summer, even though they failed to achieve their primary goal of getting James. The sources said the deal is expected to be finalized over the weekend.
Good deal for Felton and Knicks. They have a decent nucleus in my opinion. Not in the basement of the East anymore, that's for sure. Felton/Douglas Chandler/Azibuke Gallinari Randolph Amare/Turiaf Decent rotation. Very good run and gun unit.
I'm now totally satisfied with this flaming failure of a summer for the Knicks. Amare + Felton = Not even close to being a contender. A year ago, no way anybody thought these two would be their biggest signings.
Felton to Stoudamire strikes fear in my heart. Raymond Felton can literally pass the ball better than I can. Picks and picks and picks and picks.
Bad deal for them. They could have paid half for Ridnour and it would have been better. Hollinger thinks so, too.
Amare wont play center... its Felton/douglas azubuike/walker gallinari/chandler amare/randolph curry/ turiaf randolph and turiaf may switch as well...
curry is about as useful as a dead man in New York. I can't see him being on the court for them at all even if he is healthy. He's just an expiring contract now.
I didnt realize he missed that much time last season, is he still injured?....if he's healthy i think they'll give him significant time, too much money and they need to help amare in the front court...he wont be happy having someone shorter than him at center, especially if it means he'll have to play some minutes at the 5 too..
Felton is actually a damn good PG, IMO. he didn't exactly have great players in CHA. having Amare will help him a lot.
I didn't realize that they had quite a bit of money left after the proposed Lee trade. In addition to this they have Curry's expiring contract.
as bad as they are... tell me 8 teams in the east better than them? i can only come up with 6. orl, mia, chi, bos, atl, mil... seriously, that roster is good for like 35-40 wins max. and yet they could be 7th seed?
That's why other teams didn't value the Knicks picks of ours as high as before. If we had these picks before the deadline this season, we would have net a better player than Martin.
good move by the knicks. they didn't overpay felton either. he's worth that price. playing under a slow, defensive-minded larry brown, he put up 12 pts and 6 assists on 46%fg, 38% 3s. under d'antoni, look for those to be inflated to something like 18 and 8. so he's worth the 7 mil. look for them to make the playoffs as a lower seed.
I feel really bad for the Knicks. They cleared house, and stroke out. Mediocrity at best. Good for our picks though. Hopefully Pritchard doesn't mess it up for us.