As I said before, and in other places, the Knicks don’t need a superstar at the PG, Felton works just fine so long as they upgrade other key positions.

A solid Center, a high scoring SG or SF (Melo+Fields in starting 5 would be nice) and a better head coach and the Knicks will be set to contend for a title. See this is why I wanted New York to draft Hassan Whiteside and Jarvis Varnado, not Rotten, because both were bigs known for shot blocking and rebounding in college. Both are long term building projects but hey take a chance, you never know how it might turn out.

The Knicks offensive system is predicated on running the pick&roll through Amar’e, getting to the line and hitting the open 3-point shooter. Clearly that’s affective but it’s not the only way to run a strong offensive unit. The Knicks need defense if they want to be more then the Eastern Conference version of the Phoenix Suns or Portland Trailblazers.

Now while both those teams were fun to watch, go ahead and ask their fans if they’re happy with zero titles in all the time both squads were playoff teams.

Along that line, the more I think about it, the more I’m starting to feel that if the Knicks ever truly want to contend with Amar’e as one of the core pieces, then the main thing they need is a bruising center to protect the paint and defend. If you move him to center and Gallo to the four-spot, you could bring in a couple of Van Gundys, a Riley, Popovitch, and whoever, and they still wouldn’t be able to instill a solid defensive system around that group.

Tony Parker was never an option for me since his game is built on speed and that goes away pretty quickly in most athletes careers, especially one that plays as much as Tony.

The problem with the Knicks is their head coach. Felton is not the right point guard for this system, a superior passer is needed for this system. What I’m saying is I want this system to go! The Knicks don’t need a star player at point (though no one in their right mind would keep Felton if NYK had a shot at D-Will or CP3) so long as they have two 20 ppg players on the roster that can carry the load late in games.

A starting 5 of Amar’e, Gallo (they should really try Gallo at the 4), Melo, Fields & Felton can be affective. I’m not sure they can win a title, but they’ll be in the playoffs every year.

If Donnie fails to land Melo then he should sign Jason Richardson, his scoring at the 2 is sorely needed on this squad.

With the young talent the Knicks have, the potential to add a quality 2-guard or SF in free agency, I have a lot of confidence in this franchise moving forward. They just need to land themselves a solid head coach and this team can start playing championship basketball, which is defensive minded B-Ball.

I mean, Knick fans had been praying for Tony Parker, but his 7.4 assists this season are a career-high. And except for JKidd, Rondo & barely CP3, all of those guys attempt more shots, so they dominate the rock as scorers too and would take even more shots away from Gallo & Chandler.

Felton’s definitely getting into a groove, and over the last two weeks he’s actually averaged 8.6 assists, good enough for 6th best during that time period (only Rondo, CP3, Deron, Nash & Westbrook were better).

So sure, it’d be nice to get CP3 or Deron, but c’mon, those guys are perhaps two of the top five players in the league right now, so it seems unfair to diminish Felton by comparing him to them. And what with Melo being very clearly extremely available right now, it makes sense that everyone’s obsessed with getting him. Plus, Felton’s pretty much shown up for every game since the regular season started (yes, he was AWOL during pre-season), so I’d argue that we’ve been hurt much more by the inconsistency at the SF position. Gallo has been great in some games, but he’s disappeared/sucked in others (and those games we tend to lose). When he’s shot better than 37%, just 37%, we’ve only lost ONCE the entire season. That’s not 37% from three-point land, but 37% from the field. And he’s only shot better than 37% in 8 of our 18 games. That is awwwwwful. I say this not to rag on him, and I do believe he’ll get it going regularly eventually while getting even better, but it’s quite possible that if we swapped Gallo for Melo, we’d currently have more wins than if we’d swapped Felton for Deron.

Regardless, to go from solid to a top ten team, we need an upgrade in talent, so it’s sorta silly to argue over who would help us more. Any additions (unless we have to trade away too much) will be great.

The problem is Deron cannot become a free agent yet.

At the end of the 2011-12 season both Williams and Chris Paul can become free agents (I believe that’s right), with Dwight Howard eligible for free agency at the end of the following season.

That’s a long wait for Knicks fans who have been waiting too bloody long already. It’s no safe bet then any of those three great players will leave their current teams either, though I do believe Howard will go because the Magic are getting older and will only get worse with time.