Could Allen Iverson return to the NBA? Yeah, I doubt it too, but I list him below anyway. (Source: Yardbarker.com)

The big free agents, the medium free agents, and with Tracy McGrady being signed by the Pistons today, even pretty much most of the small free agents have already been snatched up, but a few guys still remain.  None of these guys will be game changers unless something unforeseen happens (like last year when every big man in Portland cracked in two, leaving old man Juwan Howard playing big minutes rather than just be the locker room/practice influence that he was expected to be).  So maybe some of these guys will end up being useful, but most will at best maybe add one more win to their team over the whole season.  I’m not listing guys who I don’t think can even be that small a factor (like Devean George), making this an inherently subjective list.  And I wouldn’t be at all surprised if many of these guys end up not getting a job in the NBA this season.

Players Who Could Make The Biggest Impact (of the scrap pile that remains):

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The second one, which we also talked about before it was finalized, was a trade with the Houston Rockets involving Tracy McGrady & his big ol’ expiring contract.  Turns out the deal didn’t contract, it expanded, becoming a threesome with the Sacramento Kings.  The Knicks basically gave up everything that was initially reported, and their attempts to protect their draft picks were laughable.  The Rockets get the choice to swap 2011 picks with the Knicks, but we stood our ground and got the pick protected.  If it’s the top pick in the draft.  Really?  That’s the best we could do?  What was the conversation like between Donnie Walsh and Houston GM Daryl Morey?

Walsh, “No, no, you’re asking for too much, we’ll only do it if the pick is lottery protected!”

Morey, “Nah.”

Walsh, “Fine, top-ten protected.”

Morey, “No.”

“Top five!”

“Nope”

“Top three!  And that’s as low as I’ll go!”

“Can’t do it.  Oh, got Sacramento on the other line, so I best be going-”

“Okay, okay, no protection!  Wait, no, that’ll make me look like a total chump who didn’t even attempt to fight this.”

“Know what?  You seem like a nice guy, tell ya what I’ll do.  We both know the chances of it being the number one pick are like a hundred-to-one, whadaya say we make it Top One protected.  It won’t affect me, and you… you can make up stories about how you stood your ground, refused to be bullied about.”

“Hmm, I can live with that.”

“But ya also gotta call me the ‘Grand High Poobah’ whenever we speak.”

“As you wish, Poobah.”

“That’s ‘Grand High’ to you.”

Ummm, but I digress.  Incredibly far.  Back to the actual facts of the trade.  So the Rockets, who made out like bandits, not only get to swap that 2011 pick, they also get the Knicks 2012 pick (oooh, but it’s top-5 protected), Jordan Hill, Jared Jeffries, and the biggest thing… Sacramento’s sweet shooting Kevin Martin.   Martin, who’s still recovering from injury, has been able to easily score 25 points/game in the past, getting to the line 7-10 times a game for free buckets, and hitting threes with impunity despite having one of the oddest looking shooting motions.  He should thrive in the Rockets’ current free-flowing system, and should Yao Ming return healthy next year, Martin’s outside shooting should complement him much better than T-Mac’s game ever did.  Oh, and the Rockets also have to take Sacramento’s Hilton Armstrong (now on his third team this season).

The Kings, who had decided that Martin wasn’t working well along their rookie wunderkind, Tyreke Evans, get Martin’s contract off their books, plus the Rockets’ contender for sixth-man-of-the-year, Carl Landry.  Despite coming off the bench, Landry has been top 5 this season in points scored in the fourth quarter.  With the Kings struggling to close out some games, he could be a big boon.  And the wily Rockets had signed Landry to a great, reasonable deal too.  The Kings also get Larry Hughes from us, plus Joey Dorsey from the Rockets.

As for us, we get TMac, plus Sacramento’s third-string point guard, Sergio Rodriguez.  As mentioned, the key impetus for this whole deal was to get Jared Jeffries’ contract off the books for next year.  Since TMac’s contract expires this year, we get what we want: enough cap space to sign nearly two max free agents (it depends on what the final cap limit will be, which won’t be determined until this summer), which’ll be more cap space than any other team in the league is expected to have.  However, in the meantime, like I said previously, we get a free audition of McGrady to see if he has anything left.  And if he does, maybe he’ll choose to stay in NYC for a discount.  The other short-term bonus is that even though he’s not a PG, he’s a good distributor so maybe he can take minutes away from the god-awful Chris Duhon.  Along those lines, the throw-in Sergio Rodriguez is actually a pretty darn exciting PG himself, nicknamed “Spanish Chocolate” (kinda odd that he ended up in Sacramento where Jason Williams, aka “White Chocolate” made his name.  What’s up with Sac-town’s desire for Chocolate?  I mean it ain’t like they play in Hershey, Pennsylvania or something…).  “Spanish,” much like “White,” is known to be a mediocre defender, but hell, on this Knicks’ team he should fit right in.  Unlike Duhon, he is aggressive, and unlike Nate Robinson, he is a pass-first type of point guard.

Whew, this is getting long, and I haven’t gotten to the third trade yet.  It’s with the Celts, and sadly it includes fan favorite Nate Robinson (plus another Knick, who for some reason is still unknown — I’m thinking Jonathan Bender or Marcus Landry) in return for Eddie House and seldom used players J.R. Giddeons and Bill Walker.  Kind of an odd trade.  The Knicks do it solely to get rid of Nate, not for better talent, versatility, money or anything.  His inconsistency and free-lancing just bugs the hell out of Mike D’Antoni, so they got rid of him even though along with David Lee he’s the longest tenured Knick and as I said, the fans love him.  On the opposite end, Eddie House is not only a big fan favorite for the Celts, but also someone who Celtics’ coach Doc Rivers says is a core player who he doesn’t want to lose.  However, the Celts have been playing poorly lately (for a team who wants a championship or bust) so management used this to send a “message” that players better step it up.  I mean Nate’s a slightly better defender than House, and has more offensive versatility (meaning he’s not just a spot-up three-point shooter), but he won’t be the difference between a championship or not for Boston.  Their real problem is with their power forwards: Kevin Garnett (gimpy), Rasheed Wallace (fatty), and Glen “Don’t Call Me Big Baby” Davis (no D).

Oh yeah, and we lost again last night to the Bulls (played well for three plus quarters, then fell apart).  If only the summer of 2010 could get here sooner so we could get a real team…

[Donnie] Walsh may have found a taker for [Jared] Jeffries, and it also appears that the price he has to pay to get Jeffries off the books is Jordan Hill. The trade, as reported by Yahoo, would send Jeffries, Hill and either Al Harrington or Larry Hughes to Houston for Tracy McGrady, Brian Cook and Joey Dorsey. Draft picks would also exchange hands, in the Rockets’ favor.

With an estimated $53 million cap next summer, the Knicks would stand to have as much as $31.5 million with which to pursue free agents [if this trade goes through]. The cream of the crop — LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh — can each sign for $16.57 million, so the Knicks can almost afford two of them. They would still be about $1.7 million short of making a maximum offer to two of these players.

But they would have options. One scheme would be to sign one of these players for the full $16.57 million and then pursue a player on the next rung down, like Atlanta’s Joe Johnson, who might sign for slightly less.

[...] they would also enter the 2010-11 season with Curry as an ending contract, and therefore as a more valuable trade commodity.

While it’s tough to trade a young player like Jordan Hill before you can fully determine his potential, it’s probably worth it for the added flexibility this summer.  However, word was that the Knicks partly wanted to get rid of Al Harrington so they could free some time up at the power forward spot for Jordan.  Trading them both would likely mean that either Gallo or, yikes, newcomer Brian Cook would split time at the PF slot.  While losing Jordan would be a bummer, the draft picks that Larry Coon briefly mentions sound like we’d be giving up a lot according to Brian Cronin at KnickerBlogger.com who says the trade would also include:

(and here’s the kicker) the right to swap 2011 first round picks, an unprotected 2012 first round pick and possibly a 2010 second round pick.

Due to the Eddy Curry trade/signing, we already lost a draft pick that turned into LaMarcus Aldridge, plus we’re gonna lose this year’s pick (which after we tear the team apart should make us rack up even more losses & guarantee us a top 5 pick). Cronin goes on to say:

Morey deserves a lot of credit for driving an extremely hard bargain, knowing that the Knicks are so desperate for that cap room that they’d give him pretty much anything he wanted.

If the Knicks go out and sign Lebron James and another MAX player like Wade or Bosh (or hell, just Lebron James and other good free agents like David Lee and, I dunno, Marcus Camby), then this trade is clearly a winner. But what are the odds of the Knicks getting the top free agents out there?

The local sportswriters are showering Walsh with praise over the possible deal, suggesting he should get Executive of the Year if the trade goes through, but be sure to ignore those fellows.

I’m with him, partly ‘cuz honestly Jared Jeffries has played rather well this year.  His defense has been great, and his three-point shooting has steadily improved.  Yes, he’s not quite a $7 million player, but for one year?  Particularly for the Rockets who appreciate glue guys like their own Shane Battier.

Personally, like Cronin, I think it’s highly unlikely we get Wade or LeBron, who are really the only game-changers out there.  Maybe we get a Bosh or Joe Johnson or A’m'a’r'e Stoudamire, but they only improve your team a bit, they don’t turn it into a potential title contender.  However, what could help make the trade worth it is the one thing that neither of these articles mentions: maybe McGrady can still be a good player.  Both of those treat him just as an expiring contract to be gotten rid of, but maybe the guy still has something left in the tank.  I believe he’s still only like 30, so he ain’t dead yet.  Sure, he ain’t gonna be the T-Mac of a few years ago who lead the league in scoring & legitimately was thought of as being in the same category as Kobe Bryant.  But what if he’s still solid?  Maybe a collection of Bosh, Joe Johnson, TMac, Wilson Chandler & Danilo Gallinari could be dangerous.  Let’s see if we get a chance to find out.

Recently, however, another Knicks player has popped up in trade talks and his name is Al Harrington. Harrington has been involved in the most recent trade rumor that sent him to Washington along with Larry Hughes. The Bulls really want to move Tyrus Thomas and are heavily pressuring Walsh to make a move that would send Thomas to New York for Harrington.

D’Antoni has come out and stated he’d love to have Thomas in New York, and perhaps a trade of scenery would get Thomas back on track. Thomas has struggled in Chicago and I’m sure Bulls fans cringe every time they see LaMarcus Aldridge and his stats for obvious reasons. Thomas just hasn’t lived up to his hype coming out of LSU and that final 4 squad.

Thomas has a tremendous upside, but is still a huge liability on the offensive end. He’s a turnover machine and has poor low post mechanics. The one thing, however, the Knicks don’t have is a shot blocker and Thomas is very solid in that regard. In D’Antoni’s system Thomas would have more freedom like his time in LSU and perhaps turn into the player he is capable of.

Harrington would bolster the Bulls playoff chances in a major way and improve that team then most would think. Harrington hangs around the 3 point line way more then a power forward should, but the Bulls have been abysmal from 3 since Gordon’s departure and inserting Harrington would give them a legitimate perimeter shooter that they’ve been lacking.

This move would be great for both sides and I hope Walsh pulls the trigger and makes the swap.

Um, Jared, for a bounce pass you're supposed to bounce the ball on the ground, not your butt...

However, the Knicks seemed fairly disinterested for much of the first half.  Kinda like they’ve looked in general.  One amazing exception was Larry Hughes, who got an early call off the bench and decided to play with energy this time instead of sulking.  He played well enough to get minutes in the second half too, and afterward D’Antoni said that if Hughes keeps playing like that then he’ll keep getting minutes.  Of course the bigger more important question is whether this means Hughes will shave his beard.  Early word says he’s not ready to commit to that just yet.  We’ll keep you on top of this vital news as soon as more information breaks.

Hughes: "One, two, step, kick and... jazz hands!"

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2. Chris Duhon’s shot is starting to come back, but whenever it does briefly return he then seems to follow it with some ill-advised jumpers.  It’s like a shooter who gets hot and then keeps trying harder and harder shots, looking for a heat check.  Except Duhon (who’s been like 3 for 912 over the last few games) has been in such a rut that if he hits just one shot he seems to think he must be on fire.  Weird.  Going from passing up open shots and layups to forcing looks ‘cuz he thinks he might be feeling it.

Duhon: "Who cares if I'm surrounded by 4 Wizards? I hit my last shot, so I'm shooting this one!"

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1. Duhon finally got a couple of shots to go in.  Maybe that’ll help get his confidence back.  Interestingly, even though he’s been missing everything, his shot has looked good and is lined up, it’s just either a tad short or a tad long, but it’s how you want to miss a shot.

2. Gallo, on the other hand, when he misses shots seems to kinda miss ugly.  I don’t get it.  Sometimes he’s got a beautiful stroke, and other times it’s just a clang.  And more and more it seems like he comes out flat with his shot and needs to warm up during the game.

3. Back to Duhon, he has also stopped passing up wide open shots, which is good.

4. Without Nate, and with Duhon struggling to score, we’re in a tough spot.  Toney Douglas actually did a decent job the first half, but like everyone else in the second half he laid a big fat one.

5. If you were told that the Mavs would be missing two of their starters, Jason Kidd and Eric Dampier, and that Dirk would shoot only 1-for-6, you would’ve thought we’d be in the game, wouldn’t ya?

6. If you were told that Jared Jeffries led the team in scoring with 14 points, and he got 12 of those in the first quarter, you’d've known we lost big time, wouldn’t ya?  Particularly if we then said that Dirk would only miss one shot in the second half.

7. I don’t get the Knicks’ bench.  Most of them don’t get to play often (or at all), and yet none of them seemed interested in wanting to use that extra run to prove themselves.  Jonathan Bender, who’d fallen completely out of the rotation, just wanted to shoot or drive (&then shoot) every time he got it.  None of them played any defense.  I know D’Antoni was criticized in Phoenix for his team’s supposed lack of defense, but he’s switched that up here.  ‘Cuz we can’t score like Nash, et al, did.  And when we had our biggest run of success, it was because of our D.  And that’s why Jared Jeffries gets so many minutes.  So you’d think some of the bench mob would come out with energy & try to play some great D.  You’d've been wrong.

8. Drew Gooden owned David Lee on both ends.  Completely.  Like he didn’t even have any mortgage left to pay, he just outright owned him and could do whatever he wanted with him.  Gooden ain’t known for his shot blocking ability, but he got two of Lee’s.

9. David Lee needs to work, defensively, on not letting his man get such good position before he catches the ball.  It’s one thing if Lee’s up against Shaq and Lee don’t have the weight/strength to do that, but against Gooden?  Gooden’s taller, but he’s not a muscle-bound wide-load.

10. Everyone made it off the bench except Larry Hughes.  Good.  Hughes wined about not getting minutes (or when he got 9 minutes several games ago he called it a joke).  The last game when Nate Robinson injured his hamstring, Hughes got another shot.  He sucked.  He needs to realize (actually the whole bench does) that to get minutes he has to work harder.  The reason Jordan Hill’s gotten a chance the last few games is because he supposedly works crazy-hard in practice.  And he had some great hustle when he finally got some minutes (although lately he’s been making those rookie mistakes that happen when you don’t know how to hustle — like committing fouls by falling for shot fakes or going over the top to grab a rebound).

11. LeBron isn’t gonna wanna join a team like this.  If we don’t turn things around again and get back on track, it won’t just be a long year.  It’ll be a long decade.  Again.

What happened?  First and foremost, Nate Robinson, the human spark plug, injured his hamstring and was unable to play in the second half.  Second, this resulted in D’Antoni using disgruntled Larry Hughes (who hadn’t played in eight of the last nine games), and Hughes blew chunks.  Bad chunks.  Not good ones like chocolate chunks.  Man, I like chocolate chunks.  Just the word takes things to the next level, like who would take normal chocolate chip cookies over chocolate chunk cookies?  And I won’t even go into the immortal Chunk and his truffle shuffle from “Goonies” ‘cuz this clearly has nothing to do with bball.

Where was I?  Oh, yeah, Hughes blew chunks.  You’d think with him having sat out so long that he’d come in focused and wanting to prove that he deserved to get regular minutes (see Nate Robinson returning from exile with a 41 point explosion).  Hughes played sloppy and I was praying for D’Antoni to take him off the court (& I never pray — I’m not a religious man).  Third, D’Antoni finally replaced Hughes with Duhon, but Duhon still can’t hit a shot.  I was happy that for the most part Du was at least taking those wide-open shots, and it’s not like his shots were godawful things like say Shaq shooting free throws.  He just can’t seem to connect for whatever reason.  I’ve never seen someone get as into his head as much as Du do (mmm, scatological humor).

Fourthly, Jordan Hill, who was an amazing rebounding/hustling machine off the bench in the first half, didn’t seem to have the same energy.  I dunno what happened, maybe he had like a big ol’ double cheeseburger at halftime and was feeling groggy.  But in the first half he was key to helping Lee dominate on the boards against the taller Lakers.  Fifthly, the whole team in general seemed to lack a bit of energy.  Maybe after President Clinton’s halftime plea for donations for Haiti, it all seemed insignificant in the larger sense.  Oh, and I’ve never understood why Presidents get to be called President their whole lifetime.  That seems wrong.  I mean, Trevor Ariza used to be on the Knicks, do people still call him Knick player Trevor Ariza?  Or in these hard times if you were VP at a company, got fired, and ended up working at the postal office, would you still demand your fellow sorters call you veep?  I find it even odder with one-term Presidents, like say the OG (Original George… Bush that is), who we specifically voted out of office, saying we didn’t want him to be Prez anymore.  Like you could sorta make the case with the two-termers ‘cuz it’s like ahh, we would’ve voted for you again Clinton, but since you couldn’t run again you’ll always be Pressy to me.  Sorry, I’m sick, I think I’m babbling extra hard today.

Anyway, the last thing that was different between the two halves, was that the Knicks didn’t seem to be trapping quite as strongly as they did the first half.  In the first half, every time Bynum, Pau or Kobe got the ball, the Knicks instantly double-teamed the dude, resulting in them panicking and having to give it up.  In the final quarter they seemed to stop doing that (they did do it in the third quarter though).  Yes, the Lakers adjusted their triangle formation a bit so that just Pau and Kobe were on the strong side.  This meant if the closest man doubled Pau when he got it down low, it would have to be Kobe’s guy, and the Black Mamba ain’t someone ya wanna leave unguarded.  However, there were many times earlier when the person who doubled came from the weak side, so I’m not sure why this adjustment froze the Knicks so completely.  In the fourth whenever they did double it was usually much later, and thus too late because Pau/Kobe were just finishing their move.  The first three quarters we swarmed before they could start their move, keeping ‘em off balance.

That said, the Lakers are the team with the best record in the league, and for the most part we played a great game against them.  They were also saved because they were on fire from three-point land, shooting an insane 52.2% (Ron Artest went 3-for-3 himself, and he ain’t known as a high percentage shooter).  Maybe that’s why the Knicks adjusted their defensive strategy in the fourth?  They felt the Lakers were hitting too many open threes and they decided to shut those down?  However, if it’s a choice between letting Kobe & Pau show their stuff or see if the supporting cast can keep up an unbelievable barrage from the hinterlands, don’t ya gotta force the unknowns to win it for them?

Despite the Knicks’ slowing down from their earlier winning pace from a few weeks, this is definitely a different, better team than the one that started this season.  If in November someone told me the Knicks would be only a game and a half out of the playoffs in January, I would’ve responded, “The only way they do that is if they get a great steal of a trade.”  Yet here they are with the same personnel as the beginning of the season (okay, so they picked up Jonathan Bender, who’s been decent, but definitely has been a game-changer.  Plus he seems to have already fallen out of the rotation).   Thus to figure out what helped bring about this change, there’s no better place to start than with Coach Mike D’Antoni (okay, maybe a better place to start would be in a bank that gave away free money and chocolate cake, but they’re hard to find).  Mike Berman of the New York Post gives some insight here:

After the Knicks’ franchise-worst 1-9 start, Mike D’Antoni woke up one morning with an epiphany: To hell with coaching with the future in mind and just try to win now.

D’Antoni’s win-at-all-costs approach has meant a tight-as-a-drum rotation; the end to the Eddy Curry experiment; the exile of their two first-round picks, Jordan Hill and Toney Douglas.

“To be honest with you, when we started off slow, I got off track, too,” D’Antoni said [...]  “It was for 2010. So let’s throw all the rookies in, let’s do this, let’s do that. But after 1-9, there was no way I was going to make 82 games like this. You kind of said, ‘The hell with that. Let’s win today.’ And it’s worked out better than I thought.”

D'Antoni cuts the cord on the still-born that was the Knicks' first 10 games

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For those who aren’t up on stats, a brief explanation.  Normal plus/minus is just a measure of while a player is in, how much did his team outscore, or get outscored, by the other team.  The idea is that say someone like Houston’s Shane Battier who’s a phenomenal defender, you can’t determine that from the traditional stats of points, assists, rebounds, blocks, steals, etc.  But if he IS playing great D, then his team should theoretically be scoring more when he’s in.  So if Houston scored say 63 points while he was in, but their opponent only scored 47, he’d have a plus/minus of +16.  Or maybe it’d prove the opposite, that even though he’s a good defender, he’s such a liability on offense that the other team scored 84 points to his team’s 63.  That’d give him a plus/minus of -21.

Now there’s a ton of problems with normal plus/minus.  For instance, let’s say the Rockets were going up against the Lakers, so whenever Kobe was in, Battier went in.  If Kobe sat, Battier sat to rest so he’d have more energy to hassle the Black Mamba.  Meanwhile Houston’s bench guy only has to cover like Adam Morrison’s corpse or something.  Chances are that Bench Guy will have a better plus/minus than Battier, even though Battier’s far superior.  Adjusted plus/minus is supposed to account for not only the difference in the opposition, but also for which teammates are on the floor at the same time.  Meaning just ‘cuz Derek Fisher starts and plays with Kobe, it won’t effect that Jordan Farmar has to play with Morrison The Undead (or actually The Dead).  How do they do that?  I dunno.  It’s a bit hush-hush.  Also, all the stat-heads say that small sample sizes are useless for plus/minus.  If Adam Morrison happens to be on the floor when Kobe suddenly scores 29 points in 1 minute, then it’ll show Ammo has +29 when he just stood there and watched.  However, over a long enough period of time, the fact that Ammo is useless will be shown ‘cuz he won’t always have someone else on fire while he’s on the court.

Anyhoo, so here’s some stuff from a recent Q & A interview with Wayne Winston on ESPN’s TrueHoop Blog:

10. You have told me that many coaches do things you simply cannot understand, for instance by ignoring some really good lineups. What are some of the best lineups from this season, and are some of them not being played enough?

As I described above, the Lakers have the best lineups. After that, some of the best in the League are:

Hawks: Mike Bibby, Jamal Crawford, Al Horford, Josh Smith and Joe Johnson Rating: +37

Cavaliers: Daniel Gibson, Zydrunas Ilgauskas, LeBron James, Anderson Varejao and Delonte West or Anthony Parker Rating: +53

Mavericks: Erick Dampier, Jason Kidd, Jason Terry, Dirk Nowitzki and Shawn Marion Rating +31

Warriors: Stephen Curry, Monta Ellis, Anthony Morrow, Anthony Randolph, Vladimir Radmanovic Rating +40

Bucks: Charlie Bell, Andrew Bogut, Ersan Ilyasova and Brandon Jennings Rating +29

Knicks: Chris Duhon, Danilo Gallinari, Larry Hughes, Jared Jeffries and David Lee Rating +51 [Note: I, Short White Boy, bold-faced this for you, not TrueHoop.]

Thunder: Nick Collison, Kevin Durant, Nenad Krstic, Thabo Sefelosha and Russell Westbrook Rating +32

Magic: Ryan Anderson, Matt Barnes, Dwight Howard, Jameer Nelson and J.J. Redick Rating +56

Magic: Matt Barnes, Vince Carter, Rashard Lewis, Dwight Howard and Jason Williams Rating +36

Raptors: Andrea Bargnani, Marco Bellinelli, Chris Bosh, Jose Calderon and Hedo Turkoglu Rating +35

Jazz: Carlos Boozer, Ronnie Brewer, Kyrylo Fesenko, Deron Williams, Wesley Matthews Rating +26

Jazz: Ronnie Brewer, Andrei Kirilenko, Paul Millsap, Mehmet Okur, Deron Williams Rating +26

With all that in mind, some notes:

* For the Knicks, Wilson Chandler, Chris Duhon, Al Harrington, Larry Hughes and David Lee is bad (minus-21). Put Gallinari (+30 rating) or Jeffries (+8 rating) for Chandler and the Knicks are much better. So why has first lineup played almost as often as the other two put together (85 minutes vs. 87 minutes)? [Again, that's my bold-ifying, not TrueHoop.]

So according to WW, the Knicks can play the fourth best line-up in the ENTIRE league.  However if you watch the actual games that are a few things about this don’t pass the Something’s-Egregiously-Erroneous (S.E.E.) test.  First, when Hughes was playing, the Knicks weren’t winning.  When he’s played more than 8 minutes, the team’s record is 9-17.  In the remaining games they’re 6-4.  The real issue was that Chandler started off the season playing like doggie doo.  That said, I do believe that adding Jeffries to core group has been a huuuuge plus for the Knicks (much more so that Gallinari, despite Gallo’s +30 to Jeffries +8).  As many have noted, the key to the Knicks’ recent run of success has had a bunch to do with their suddenly improved defense.  And that’s all Jeffries.

So I like the idea of advanced stats, but to blindly follow ‘em as WW does is to misuse ‘em.  As Peter Parker’s Uncle Ben (no relation to the rice king) once sorta said, “With great power (from stats) comes great responsibility.”

If McGrady is pursued this could be monumental in luring LeBron to New York. A backcourt of Curry/McGrady could be devastating for opposing defenses. McGrady is looking to get his career back on track and really would only require perhaps Larry Hughes and maybe Jared Jefferies (I can dream right?).

I am all in favor of getting rid of the overrated Hughes who never really fit in this system with his self play and horrible ball movement. McGrady is very bridle, however, and I’m not certain his knees can handle our offense on a nightly basis. His minutes will be monitored by D’Antoni and with Richardson and perhaps Nate still remaining in the backcourt that could take a lot of pressure off of McGrady and keep him healthy.

As you can see, the possibilities are endless. Donnie, you have my approval to go after one of the guards in the game.