7 foot Gargamel decided to play in the NBA this season. http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/players/4129/gamelog;_ylt=ApflOhAo1B2mlV9WbSFYn_9TPaB4
Overall, the Knicks have a pretty tough month. If they finished January 8-9 then that would be a success for them. This loss at home against Toronto was a nice bonus for us, but it's hard to get excited with how crappy the East is.
I'll be happy if it lands in the 15-17 range and if we don't make the playoffs, we can package both of them in a deep draft and finally land a blue chip piece.
The East is definitely crappy, but the Raptors aren't even a playoff team in the horrible Eastern conference. The Raptors are one of the easiest teams to beat in the East. The Knicks failed to get a win in MSG. The other East matchups don't get much easier for the Knicks, when they hit the road and play back-to-backs against teams better than the Raptors. Raptors are simply horrible and the Knicks got beat by them. It says alot about their depth. They spent most of their capspace on their roleplayer and have no star to show for it. They have an injured Amare and B-Diddy on the bench.
Knicks are definitely one injury away from being a mediocre~bad team. They are 2-3 right now with their wins against a pierce-less celtics and the kings. Amare is gimpy right now. Tyson has injury history. I highly doubt that they both play >55 games in a 66 season. It would be basically Melo + D league players for multiple games. Even if things go right for NY, a safe projection for their(our) pick would be 15-19 in a deep draft which should net us a lottery type (because of how often teams ahead of us misdraft, allowing our top 14 to "fall" to us).
They have a horrible offensive scheme. It's just Melo iso with every body in a corner. Losing to the Raptors at home says a lot. This is great for us because they can't beat Heat, Celtics with Pierce, Magic, Bucs, Hawks, 76ers, Pacers or Bulls looking like that.
They will struggle during the season. Douglas, Shumpert, and JJ are the only decent back-ups these guys have. But Baron Davis will be a huge come playoffs, he will be game shape/form by then. There is no way Knicks dont make the playoffs with Melo, Stat and Chandler.
Amare had difficulty with Shaq. It's looking the same with Chandler. He needs the space to be more effective.
And the ball which is something he won't be getting as much with Melo being the feature player and not having a true pg on the floor right now.
Don't worry. The league will fix it to make sure the Knicks get the #5 pick and we get screwed. League's only interested in what they consider to be the big market teams anyway.
A half-court offense built around a steady diet of spread pick and rolls is dependent on NOT having a guy eating up space in the middle. You really need a stretch PF/C. The Chandler deal would have made sense had they been able to deal Amar'e for CP3, but he's just a terrible fit for them right now.
