Jamal Crawford – Ghost in the Machine

Aristotle Meets the King. | Draft Day.

On a Draft Day deal with potential title implications, Shaquille O’Neal joins LeBron James in Cleveland. (Phoenix, giving up on their ill-advised Shaq experiment, pick up Ben Wallace, Sasha Pavlovic, and the 46th pick — so, this is a money move, basically.) To my mind, this is a solid move by the Cavs. Shaq may be in the tail-end of his career, but he’s still good enough and strong enough to draw double-teams down low, which is exactly what Cleveland was missing this past post-season. Pick up a pure shooter or two to spread the wings and keep the D on Lebron honest, and the Cavs are looking deadly.

Other than Shaq, the other major move of late was Richard Jefferson to the Spurs for Bruce Bowen and Kurt Thomas, which puts a stop to San Antonio’s slide in the West almost immediately, and should make them a contender again if everybody stays healthy. And ex-Knick and now-journeyman Jamal Crawford looks headed to Atlanta from Sacramento, where he’ll undoubtedly put a lot of points on the board…but I don’t really see him making that team a top-tier contender. At least in the Knick days, his D was atrocious.

Speaking of New York, they tried to move up the draft to No. 5, but now look to be hoping somebody decent falls to 8 tonight. They may also be trying to get Darko Milicic for Quentin Richardson, which sounds iffy on paper. But perhaps Darko has improved since his days as a notable draft day bust. In any case, we’ll see how it all shakes out tonight at the Garden.

Update: The Knicks buy a late first round pick — 29 — from the Lake Show. “‘Certain teams, they may want to preserve cap space for the next year or two and they may need to add players,’ Kupchak said. ‘A good way to add talent at a fixed price is to have a lot of draft choices and then you can still maintain cap space a year from now.‘” And we all know what happens a year from now…

Update 2: Donnie gets Darko, and Arizona PF Jordan Hill at #8. [Full Draft.]

Clearing the Court for King James.

Following up on his stated intentions to free cap space and pave the way for acquiring LeBron James in 2010, Knicks GM Donnie Walsh pulls the trigger on two big trades, sending Zack Randolph (and trade-filler Mardy Collins) to the Clips for Tim Thomas and Cuttino Mobley (pending a heart issue) and Jamal Crawford to the Warriors for Al Harrington, all of which will be off the books during the crucial free agent season in question.

I guess it seems a bit distasteful to embrace so openly the hired-gun philosophy of winning a championship…but, hey, that’s the way the game is played. So, with that in mind, kudos to Walsh on a job well done (and good luck moving Stephon Marbury and Eddy Curry.) Besides, we Knicks fans have slogged through the past eight years since the cap- and karma-destroying trading of Patrick Ewing. At this point, we can probably eat another two.

Oden Days | Zach to the Future?

As expected, Greg Oden and Kevin Durant went 1 and 2 respectively at last night’s 2007 NBA Draft. Bigger news on the local scene, however, was the Knicks acquiring Portland’s talented, troubled PF Zach Randolph in exchange for sophomore SF Channing Frye (a good player, but he slumped considerably last year) and veteran “superstar” PG Steve Francis (a wildly overpaid underachiever with an awful, bloated contract — I can’t believe Portland took him, frankly.) All in all, I’m pretty happy with this trade. Randolph’s clearly a bit of a loon, and a cluttered Randolph-Curry frontcourt makes about as much sense as the Marbury-Francis backcourt — it’s a fantasy team line-up with no sense for team chemistry. How are Marbury, Crawford, or Robinson going to drive into the paint with both Curry and Randolph drawing double-teams in the low post, and no real shooters to spread the floor? Still, losing Francis was addition by subtraction, and, while’s Randolph’s contract is also pretty hefty ($61 million over 4 years) at the very least, Randolph is still young. (The move was definitely better than the Celtics’ obvious panic-trade for Ray Allen. I love Jesus Shuttlesworth, but shooting guards over 30 — particularly those who just had two ankle surgeries — age in dog years, and he, like Pierce, has a tendency to disappear sometimes.)

As for the Knickerbockers…

Well, it was another lousy season…as has been the case since, oh, about 2000 now. In the end, this year’s 33-49 Knicks only garnered ten more wins than last year’s dismal Larry Brown experiment. And, worse, they never lived up to the glimmers of promise at the midterm, going 4-15 after Dolan’s woeful decision to extend Isiah’s contract for two years. True, much of that freefall can be attributed to injuries — Stephon Marbury, Jamal Crawford, Quentin Richardson, and David Lee all went down for a stretch there. And, I will concede, this team does play hard for Isiah, as they never did for Larry Brown. But, even before the IR filled up, the Knicks were terrible on the defensive end. I can’t tell you how many games I watched this year where New York would be down by double digits in the first half thanks to lackadaisical D, make a gritty run in the fourth, and lose by a bucket. (And, for all of Eddy Curry’s improvement this year, the big fella still hasn’t learned to box out.) As opposed to last year’s obvious failure, I guess you could say these Knicks were comfortably mediocre. But, frankly, that’s not good enough. If we’re ever going to be a playoff contender again, we need to play both ends of the floor. And I’m not sure I see that happening with these players…or this coach.

But, this being sports, hope springs eternal. So…any of y’all other teams want to give up a solid defender for Steve Francis’s contract? Anyone? Anyone? We’ll throw in Jerome James while we’re at it…

1-0. (1-2.)

Up 19 with 9 minutes to go against a Memphis team playing without Pau Gasol, the Knicks needed all of three overtimes last night to eke out a win 118-117. Ladies and gentlemen, your 2006-2007 New York Knickerbockers. Ah well, at least we’re over .500 for the first time since January 2005 (the Wilkins era), and we definitely would’ve lost this game last year. David Lee, Q-Rich, and even Eddy Curry looked good; Francis, Frye, and Crawford less so. Update: Sigh…Back to reality. That didn’t last long.

St. Francis of Assisti?

As expected, the Knicks have pushed the panic button, acquiring Steve Francis for Trevor Ariza and Penny Hardaway’s contract. Well, we’re not giving up much other than cap flexibility (I like Ariza — he’s a hustle player — but he also makes bad decisions, and hasn’t been gelling under Larry Brown.) Still, how is a backcourt of Marbury and Francis (backed up by Jalen Rose, Jamal Crawford and Nate Robinson) going to work? They’re like five iterations of the same offensively talented, defensively deficient player (5.5 if you count Quentin Richardson), and every one of them needs the ball in their hands to be productive. At any rate, there’s a good bet that the Knicks haven’t finished yet, with Crawford for Theo Ratliff or Darius Miles a distinct possibility. “Crawford even polled the team’s beat writers after Wednesday morning’s shootaround to ask them where they believed he would be headed.“

A Rose in the Garden.

The Knicks make a panic trade in procuring Jalen Rose and a draft pick (Denver’s) for the expiring contract of Antonio Davis. Hmmm. Rose is a talented player on the offensive end, but he brings little to the table that we don’t already have in Stephon Marbury and Jamal Crawford. And that contract…ugh. Somebody should tell Isiah the first rule in getting out of a hole: Stop digging.

Isiahed.

After what looks to be a season-killing losing streak (9 of 10 games) for the Knicks, Lenny Wilkens gets the boot. (Ok, ok, he “resigned”…yeah, right.) For now, Knicks stalwart Herb Williams is in charge, but both Larry Brown and Phil Jackson are already waiting in the wings, and it seems clear Herb’s tenure will be a short one.

I dunno. Sure, there were several mental mistakes made in recent games by the coaching staff…but let’s face it: The Knicks are a bad (and badly-constructed) team. Without a single front-line player who merits a double-team in the post, our offense is basically reduced to hoping two of our three perimeter shooters (Marbury, Crawford, Houston) have a good game. That’s not going to win a championship, no matter who’s coaching. It wouldn’t even get us in the playoffs if the Atlantic Division wasn’t so terrible across the board. To my mind, Lenny was made the scapegoat for an unwinnable situation.

MSG Moves.

After a relatively quiet offseason, the Knicks finally get in the game, giving up Mutombo, Harrington, Frank Williams, and Cezary Trybanski to acquire shooter Jamal Crawford and rebounder Jerome Williams from Chicago. A cap-killer, sure, but I don’t think it’s a bad trade at all…New York needed more scoring in the worst way.