March 6, 2012; Boston, MA, USA; Houston Rockets shooting guard Kevin Martin (12) looks to make a pass during the second quarter against the Boston Celtics at TD Banknorth Garden. Mandatory Credit: Greg M. Cooper-US PRESSWIRE

10) Kevin Martin, Houston Rockets -  “The Forgotten One,” last year he was a little banged up but he is a weapon on the offensive side of the ball. He’s played for the Kings and now the Rockets in his career and has never gotten credit for his talents. If the Rockets make the playoffs this year, he will have a big say in it.

9) Eric Gordon, New Orleans Hornets - Gordon barely saw the floor last year and in his brief career has had hard times staying healthy. When healthy he has shown flashes of superstar ability. He just signed a huge max contract with the Hornets this off-season, and if he can stay healthy we will finally be able to see if he live up to the hype.

8) Monta Ellis, Milwaukee Bucks- Probably one of the best pure scores in the league. He is in his true prime right now however, I wonder if he will turn all his talent into wins for his team. He is the key to the Bucks success this season I feel.

7) Paul George, Indiana Pacers - The youngster of this group, George is only 22 years old and still a very raw talent. In his second year last year he made huge strides so I’m expected a lot from him this year. He is physically and athletically freakish; if he puts it all together, watch out for the Pacers.

6) Andre Iguodala, Denver Nuggets -  He was traded from the 76ers to the Nuggets in the blockbuster deal involving Dwight Howard and Andrew Bynum and he flies under the radar when it comes to that deal. The Nuggets have a similar identity to his former team, the 76ers. He is a great fit in Denver and I feel he will have a huge year under George Karl. He averaged 12 PPG, 6 APG, 6 RPG last season which was good but I expect even more scoring out of him this season to go along with his lockdown defense.

5) Joe Johnson, Brooklyn Nets - With a change of scenery for Johnson, Atlanta to Brooklyn, I expect him to have an excellent year. With Deron Williams running the point Johnson should benefit tremendously. His success could determine the success of the Nets as a whole. Expect to see his PPG rise from 18.8 to 21 or 22 PPG with the help of Williams.

4) James Harden, Oklahoma City Thunder - Harden has been the best sixth man in the league since he was drafted. He’s only 23 years old but I think his experience with Team USA should benefit him this year. He’s part of the core of the Thunder, and his disappearing act in the playoffs should make him hungry for this next season.

October 15, 2012; Houston, TX, USA; San Antonio Spurs guard Manu Ginobili (20) sits on the bench in the second half against the Houston Rockets at Toyota Center. Mandatory Credit: Troy Taormina-US PRESSWIRE

3) Manu Ginobili, San Antonio Spurs- Manu is Such an impact player and can do so many things when he’s healthy, but that has been his problem. His age and durability hurt his ranking but if can stay healthy he is one of the deadliest offensive threats in the game.

2) Dwyane Wade, Miami Heat - Wade is coming off of a championship season with the Miami Heat and offseason knee surgery. Even on one knee this past postseason, Wade was a huge part of the Heat’s championship run. He enters this season fully healthy and should be his normal 24 PPG, 5 APG and 5 RPG from last season.

1) Kobe Bryant, Los Angeles Lakers- I mean come on, did you expect any different? Even at 39 and with 16 years under his belt, he is still Kobe. Last season, The Black Mamba, averaged a staggering 28 PPG, 5 APG and 5 RPG. As for this season, with the additions of Steve Nash and Dwight Howard, we should expect Kobe to be his typical great self.

The Spurs represent what every NBA team should strive for: continuity, perseverance, unwavering confidence, a complete team. Down 24 to the Clippers yesterday, in a rowdy Staples Center, the Spurs never faltered. Even at 36 years old, the virtually indefensible Tim Duncan did not call for isolations and stagnate the offense. The Spurs – the best 3-point shooting team in the NBA – did not hoist shots from beyond the arc in hopes of initiating an improbable run. Instead, they stuck to what they always do. Tony Parker continued to attack and attack, driving into the paint with his patented crafty force. They moved the ball from side to side, in and out, consisting hitting Tim Duncan in pick-and-rolls, and forcing the Clippers to pick their poison on who to send help to.

What the Spurs represent is a team that believes in their system, believes in their team. The Knicks and the rest of the NBA would be smart to follow the Spurs’ example.

This is not meant to be a debate about Mike D’Antoni vs. Mike Woodson, but while D’Antoni was head coach, the Knicks had an offensive system that could have been successful if everyone bought into it. However, as we know, not everyone did, namely Carmelo Anthony, though there were likely others.

With Mike Woodson, we saw that the Knicks bought into and trusted his defensive system, and as a result, they jumped into the top five most efficient teams on defense in the NBA. However, on offense, as we saw during the playoffs, the Knicks didn’t have enough go-to plays on offense. There was hardly any consistency in play-calling as well.

For the Knicks to make the jump to becoming an elite team in the East, they have to buy into a system on both ends of the floor and stick to it through good and bad. Of course, there is something to be said of stability and consistency, neither of which are words that can be identified with the Knicks for the past decade. However, as the Spurs have proven, with their core of Tim Duncan, Tony Parker, and Manu Ginobili, other players and parts can be integrated into the system, and because Duncan, Parker, and Ginobili believe in that system, the surrounding players follow suit.

For the Knicks, this means Carmelo Anthony cannot dominate the ball on every possession and call for clear-outs. It means he has to trust his teammates and be willing to share the ball, and not go one-on-five when things aren’t working. It means that Amar’e Stoudemire has to stay focused on defense and rebounding, even if he isn’t getting his touches on offense. And when he does get his touches on offense, he has to keep an open mind as to what to do with the ball, as Duncan has proven throughout his career – not every touch is a scoring opportunity.

The Knicks have their core in place, and while the surrounding cast of players may continue to be of the turnstile dynamic, if Anthony, Stoudemire, and Tyson Chandler completely buy into a system and prove it can be successful, other players will too.

The Spurs could have given up yesterday afternoon, but they didn’t. The Knicks shouldn’t be willing to give up either.

Orlando's Matt Barnes gets a good sniff of Joe Johnson in their series: yeah, JJ stunk (source: Yardbarker.com)

I really love Manu Ginobili, and I would’ve loved to see what he could do as a Knick, but I gotta say I was kinda glad when he recently signed a 3-year deal to stay with the Spurs.  That meant he wouldn’t be available as a huge risk out there tempting the Knicks.  If you look at the players with the 30 Biggest Salaries from this past season, you can pretty much lump ‘em into two categories: the best of the best and the obscenely overpaid injured types.  There’s a serious danger that Manu will fall into Group B.   As exciting as it’d be to see how good he could be as a team’s focal point (rather than Tim Duncan and Tony Parker being the first two options), it’s a bad bet.

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Joe Johnson – Atlanta Hawks

As we discussed after the recent Knicks/Hawks game, JJ has a nice relationship with Coach Mike D’Antoni from their time together in Phoenix, plus the Knicks have somehow managed to look competitive this year in the three games he played against us.  When JJ was on those D’Antoni Suns teams, although he was huge for them, at the time he was considered to be at best their fourth most important player (after Steve Nash, Amar’e Stoudamire & Shawn Marion).  Joe rightly felt he could be more, a centerpiece, and he wanted to be paid accordingly.  Having achieved all that with the Hawks, he now has reached the point most vets get to: the main thing he wants now is the chance to play for a championship.  He is even one of the few stars who has literally put his money where his mouth is and has stated he’d be willing to take a bunch less money to be on such a team.

Now don’t misunderstand: he knows he has a very good thing going with the Hawks and that they are a really, really good team.  He’s not gonna just leave them to play on a mid-level Knick team.  So ignore this quote in the NY Daily News:

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New Yorkers, rightfully, are worried that this is an all-or-nothing proposition.  Basically, unless we get LeBron James or Dwayne Wade, we’ll just be a slightly above average team.  Kinda like how we looked with Crawford & Randolph.  While there are other studs available this summer like A’mare Stoudamire, Chris Bosh, Joe Johnson, Carlos Boozer, none of ‘em are mega-stars who ensure you’ll have a legit shot at winning a championship.  Those second-tier guys just assure that you’ll make the playoffs.  Even if you do get two of ‘em.

So if we don’t get Plan A, does that mean Plan B is doomed to fail?  Not necessarily.  Most Knicks fans are worried about Plan B, but that’s ‘cuz they assume it means not just that we sign two lesser talents, but that we sign them to more than they’re worth.  The fear is that we do something like the Pistons did this summer, when they had a bunch of cash and felt compelled to spend it, thus overpaying for Ben Gordon and Charlie Villanueva, both of whom are currently coming off the bench for Detroit.  Likewise, several years ago a few teams cleared cap space to sign Tim Duncan and Grant Hill.  After Duncan stayed with the Spurs and Hill went with Tracy McGrady to Orlando, Chicago paid a bunch of money to some scrubs just to say they got someone.

Now if Isiah was still in charge, sure, we all know he would definitely follow that path, but doesn’t Donnie Walsh deserve the benefit of the doubt?  Besides the remarkable salary dumping job he did for us, he had quite a run with the Indiana Pacers.  Not only did he assemble enough talent for them to constantly be in the top of the east during the late 1990s, but he even got that team to Finals against the Lakers in… what was it, 2000?  And after that within a year or two he had completely rejuvenated that team, getting rid of Rick Smits, Mark Jackson, Dale Davis, Antonio Davis, Jalen Rose, and turning them into a young Eastern Conference contender around Jermaine O’Neal, Brad Miller, Ron Artest, Stephen Jackson, Jamaal Tinsley, and the still effective Grandpa Reggie Miller.  This was a team that seemed poised to make it to the finals for the next few years until the unfortunate Malice At The Palace, players-and-fans-scuffle.  Has a team ever been turned around that quickly with a completely new cast?  The Lakers new team is still built around Kobe, one of their two supernova stars from their earlier three-peat.  The old-time Celtics won like 11 championships with various supporting stars, but they all centered around Bill Russell.

Fine, you say, we’ll give Walsh a chance.  But if he doesn’t get LeBron or Wade, what can he reasonably do to get the rest of the cream of the crop?  The key is getting some supporting parts at reasonable prices.  Houston has been excellent at that, getting solid unflashy guys like Shane Battier, Trevor Ariza, Luis Scola, and Carl Landry on the (relative) cheap.  Get Chris Bosh and Joe Johnson to agree to slightly less than the max, and then try to snag Ray Felton, Brendan Haywood, Josh Childress, Shannon Brown, Rudy Gay, Manu Ginobili, Kyle Korver, or Mike Miller on the cheap.  Maybe David Lee or TMac will agree to a lesser deal.  It would be pretty solid to have a line-up of Bosh, Lee, Gallo, Chandler, and Felton with Childress, Brown, Miller & TMac coming off the bench.

Yes, that’d still probably only get us to 4th or 5th in the East, but here’s the thing: it also would keep us out of the tax.  Since you personally don’t have to pay the tax as a fan, you probably don’t care, but it matters a bunch.  Why?  It means that the following summer, 2011, when Eddy Curry’s $11.3 million salary comes off the books, we can use that full amount to sign someone else.  If we give out excessive contracts this summer, we’ll go over the cap and won’t be able to add anyone new after we get rid of Curry.

With that $11+ mill, we could have a real shot at such 2011 free agents as Tim Duncan, Tony Parker, Greg Oden, Jason Richardson, Samuel Dalembert, Jeff Green, David West, Zach Randolph, Marc Gasol, Mike Conley, Troy Murphy, Mike Dunleavy Jr., Shane Battier, Aaron Brooks, Tayshaun Prince, Rodney Stuckey, J.R.Smith, Nene, Caron Butler, Joakim Noah, Boris Diaw, Kendrick Perkins, Jamal Crawford, Al Horford, and some guy named Carmelo Anthony.  Adding just one of those guys to the above roster would probably elevate the team to one of the East’s elite.  Adding Melo would bring a very real possibility of winning multiple championships.

By having a few reasonable, desirable smaller contracts, we could also trade Curry’s expiring contract in the middle of next season, so we wouldn’t even have to wait for 2011.  Like by next year the Celtics will finally have to accept that Kevin Garnett is so half-dead he’s practically a zombie.  They realize they need to blow up the team, so they decide to get rid of Paul Pierce for an expiring contract.  He makes more than Curry, but we throw in Mike Miller to make things work.  Using those contracts would also help if say someone like Melo wants more than that $11 mill.  We basically give a Mike Miller to a team for free (like only getting a second round pick in return), and then we have like another $3 mill available to pay Anthony.

The point is that it’s not LeBron/Wade or mediocrity.  It’s about not returning to the ways of Scott Layden & Isiah Thomas (& honestly lots of other GMs), and overpaying mid-level players.