Another Knicks season begins Tuesday Sep. 29 with the Knicks beginning training camp in West Point, NY. We've got 15 guaranteed contracts with the guys pictured above so there should be no surprises with the beginning season's roster. The Knicks do have a few training camp invites, they are Darion Atkins, Wes Saunders, Dejuan Summers and Travis Rice but they have little chance to make the team with the 15 guaranteed contracts so they'll be auditioning for other teams or for spots on the Knicks D-League team.
Despite the Knicks having spent almost $30M in FA, Phil Jackson and the Knicks go into the season with a lot of question marks and doubts about how well they'll do this season with this completely reconstructed roster from the start of the Phil Jackson era that PJ has put together. I said it a couple of months ago during the Knicks FA that this is Phils team now and we'll see if a requirement to win is that you have to be a model citizen to win in the NBA (not JR and Shump), this is a sentiment I often see written in the media headlines these days is that for better or worse, this is PJ's hand picked team of uncontroversial team players. I still see optimism from the blogs I've been reading about this bunch that goes counter to the ESPN and Bleacher Reports predictions that predict the Knicks win less than 30 games and I guess that's the definition of a fan that you think your home team is going to do better than expected.
But take this into consideration, the Knicks have 4 players that have been starters on NBA rosters, Affalo, Calderon, Lopez and Melo and Calderon would not start for any team in the NBA now, Lopez is just coming into his own but has not proven to be a force on the offensive side of the ball so you have Melo coming off of knee surgery and Affalo with questions about deteriorating skills coming from Denver and Portland. ESPN also ranked the 400 best players in the NBA and the Knicks were well represented in the bottom 200 with 5 players in the bottom 100 and 4 players ranked between 200-300, that's 9 players ranked in the bottom 200 so unless the ESPN rankings are egregiously wrong and the Knicks find some magic in chemistry I don't see the Knicks coming out of nowhere to win anymore than 35 games.
Despite my doubts, I will be happy as hell if the Knicks exceed expectations and I'll gladly eat crow if the Knicks make the playoffs even if they do it with a less than .500 record in a weak EC.
Last edited: