• Happy Birthday Earl Monroe! Today the Knick legend turns 67. Wonder if he will play bingo online for money? Hopefully, he’ll win some B-day dough.
• Carmelo Anthony has agreed to take part in four game exhibition tour. The tour is being described as a “homecoming tour” as games will be played in the home cities of each of the four main participants. Other participants include Lebron James, Chris Paul and Dwayne Wade.
• Cuttino Mobley is suing the Knicks for discrimination. Mobley didn’t technically play for the Knicks, however he believes that he was mistreated by the medical staff during his brief time there, causing him to retire prematurely. (more…)

On To The Next One...

* Late last night as I was boogie boarding around in my nightly search for irresistible Knicks related stuff on the internet, a snippet caught my eye, looking both peculiar and hilarious at the same time. It seems ex-Knick Cuttino Mobley (he was traded here in 2008, but never played a game due to heart trouble) has his sights on making the world a better place. How does he plan on putting his name back in the spotlight and irrevocably adjusting your life for the better, you ask? Well, Mr. Mobley is trying his damnedest to open a Medical Marijuana Dispensary in always sunny Warwick, Rhode Island. From the looks of it, this might actually be a smart business venture should it ever get off the ground.

* Removed your head from the clouds yet? Back to basketball in a big way with a serious statistical mess from your favorite all things relevant/cultural/political website involving your main man Carmelo Anthony.

* New York Magazine gives their weekly Knicks power rankings. (Spoiler Alert: Shelden Williams is ranked higher than 3 of his teammates, making this list a total crock…Just kidding, Shelden!)

* As usual, the Verbal Masturbation Master arrives an hour late to the party.

* Amar’e's jumper is way better than everybody else’s.

* Back to picking on poor Shelden.

* A nice piece on the importance of chemistry within an NBA team.

* To honor the birth of rap music’s G.O.A.T., here’s a little basketball related lyricism for your eyes and ears.

* Chauncey Billups looks to remain on the mend.

* A very interesting article by Rob Mahoney on the overlooked importance of individual defense. Rob uses former Celtic Tony Allen, who will likely share time with Shane Battier guarding Carmelo Anthony tonight, to drive his point, and it’s one I couldn’t agree more with.

* Using statistics (gasp) the New York Post takes a look at the Knicks bump in production since the Carmelo trade.

Somehow Donnie Walsh was able to get rid of Jerome James (center). It's appropriate that the first photo that came up features him surrounded by food. Also in the pic are former Knicks Jerome "Mad Dog" Williams, Antonio Davis and actor Dennis Quaid. (source: Yardbarker.com)

For those who missed it, we had Part I of our evaluation of Donnie Walsh yesterday, in which we examined how he’s done in terms of drafting.  The rules again:

1. I don’t believe in negative Monday morning quarterbacking, so I don’t punish people for making decisions that were widely held to be smart at the time, but ended up working out poorly.  Meaning if LeBron James breaks his leg in seventeen places in a car accident tomorrow and can never really play better than an average player again, I can’t fault Pat Riley for signing him down the road.

2. I do, however, believe in giving credit for decisions that seemed poor/insignificant at the time but turned out great.  When the Suns reacquired Steve Nash from the Dallas Mavericks, many pundits felt they overpaid due to Nash’s back issues and age.  Two MVPs and many amazing seasons later, it’s clear that was a good move.

3. Draft-wise, in addition to no negative Monday morning quarterbacking, I also don’t believe that if someone makes a pick that turns out surprisingly great, you can’t fault all the other teams for passing on the guy.  Like Isiah Thomas gets kudos for finding David Lee at #30, but since no one thought he’d be as good as he ended up being, I can’t penalize all other 29 teams for passing on him.

4. For each positive thing, I’ll add some points (the # of points will depend on how big a thing it was).  Similarly, for each negative decision, I’ll subtract some points.  We’ll keep a rolling tally.

At the end of adding and subtracting points in the Drafting section, it all ended up back at zero.  today This piece has gotten longer and longer, so we’re gonna break up the second category, Trades/Free Agency Signings, into two parts, getting rid of that slash.  Today we’ll do Trades, tomorrow Free Agency, and then probably Friday the last category of Other/General.

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