Without James out there as the carrot they were chasing, the Knicks would've never had the organizational courage necessary to do the gut-job on their roster that they undertook. Team president Donnie Walsh never would've come in from Indiana and changed the way the Knicks do business as drastically as he did -- which means the Knicks may have never gotten out of the salary-cap hell they'd been paralyzed in forever. Which means they wouldn't have even been in play for two max-contract superstars like James, Wade or forward Amare Stoudemire, the five-time All-Star the Knicks did sign and introduce at a noon news conference at the Garden on Thursday.