Will the Knicks be title contenders in 2012? or Have they already Peaked?

[Ilovetosuckdip]

We have all heard the statment over the past 4 years from knicks fans "the knicks are back" yada yada yada, and i am happy for them, for the first time in over a decade, their franchise is relevant, but the question is, have they peaked? is all they will be a 7th or 8th seed? is 2012-2013 finally their time to make a statment?

we all hear the same crap argument every day "stoudemire and carmelo dont mesh" we know already, get over it, and move on, they have 2 talented stars who can score, but dont play well together, but besides that, they have a good bit of talent:

chandler-DOPY

shumpert-a great young defender, who can develop into a nice 2 way player if he improves his jumper

jeremy lin- a point guard with turnover problems, but great court vision imo, and is capable of being a 14 pt and 5 assist, 3 turnover guy next season

this is a team that will for the large part remain the same next season. iman shumpert isnt likely to make huge improvements in his game due to the recovery time with his ACL, jeremy lin should improve a decent amount, and i would expect the leadershi of Anthony, Chandler, and Stoudemire to improve next season

This team has 0 money to spend and 0 draft picks, we are still awaiting arbitration of the case of lin and novak regarding whether the knicks have to choose between 1 of the 2 and sign them with the MLE, or if the knicks will be able to use their bird rights to resign them, and then be able to acquire another player via freeagency

Like it or not, you(and the heat) are not getting:

Nash

odom

Ray Allen

billups

kidd

or any Quality veteran for the minimum, it wont happen, get that idea out of your heads right now

and Kidd,and odom are certainly not going to be available for less than the full MLE of 5 million

Billups and maybe nash would consider taking the Mini MLE for a shot at a title, but will the knicks have the mini mle to play with? chances are NO

unless the knicks are willing to part with one of their assets, they will not get a draft pick, or acquire a decent player for their bench in the 2012-2013 season

so what it looks like now is that they will come back with largely the same roster, and maybe 1 or 2 veterans for the vet minimum, and you can throw the whole "derek fisher to NY" theory out the window, fisher is in the finals now going for his 6th ring, do you really think hes going to want to sign with the knicks for the minimum to just lose in the playoffs in 2013 when he could sign with a miami or a LA next season if he doesnt return to OKC?

i do believe this team will take a chance and make a trade during this offseason as i believe that gurnwald is a very good gm, but moving along with the facts laid previously in this post

This knicks team led by A superstar calibur(not a superstar, a superstar calibur player) in Carmelo Anthony who has only gotten out of the first round once in his career, the DPOY, 3 injured quality players(stoudemire, shumpert, davis) and A coach in Mike Woodson who never in his career got a team past the 2nd round, but has had 3 consecutive regular season winning seasons

so taking all this into account, will the knicks be title contenders in 2013, for the first time since the 90s? or have they already peaked as a team?

and please dont bash, and atleast try to show some objectivity in this thread, we dont need a flame war between bulls,pacers,knicks and heat fans

[justinnum1]

Where is the option"they have not peaked yet, but they wont win a title"?

[Ilovetosuckdip]

Where is the option"they have not peaked yet, but they wont win a title"?

that would probably be considered a troll option

[Chronz]

I dont agree with your assessment but I do think they should at least crack the 50 win mark for the first time in decades. Thats near contender status and a step in the right direction for this crew.

[JasonJohnHorn]

There are a lot of questions before this can be answered. Will they be able to keep Lin? Will they be able to keep Novak? Will Smith stay around? If the answer to those questions is yes, then no, they haven't peaked. But if these players get picked up by other teams, then New York's entire supporting cast is gone, and they will essentially be starting from scratch next season, and in that case, cannot fairly expect to improve on this past season.

[Cal827]

Yup, Chander is DOPY alright, Hyck-Huck-Huck

Um I think they need to make a serious move to actually contend. Unfortunately, they are likely to be stuck with Amar'es contract since they decided to Amnesty an expiring contract (this year) in Billups.

Hopefully Amar'e recovers though. He's one of my favorite players, and should be accredited for making the Knicks relevant when he was there by himself. He didn't fear the fans, and he was in MVP talks last year until they dealt the core of the team away for Melo.

The Lack of Defensive prowess ((E.g. Marion, Artest, Smith) or franchise type player (Lebron, Durant, Dirk) at those two starting forward positions will burn them almost every time.

[Ilovetosuckdip]

I dont agree with your assessment but I do think they should at least crack the 50 win mark for the first time in decades. Thats near contender status and a step in the right direction for this crew.

what part dont you agree with please?

i think they net 45 wins

they were the 8th and 7th seed over the past 2 seasons i believe, no reason for me to think they will touch 50 at all

[Ilovetosuckdip]

There are a lot of questions before this can be answered. Will they be able to keep Lin? Will they be able to keep Novak? Will Smith stay around? If the answer to those questions is yes, then no, they haven't peaked. But if these players get picked up by other teams, then New York's entire supporting cast is gone, and they will essentially be starting from scratch next season, and in that case, cannot fairly expect to improve on this past season.

they can keep lin or novak, they just have to choose which 1, and the first year's salary would be limited to 5 million i believe

[rocket]

Knicks suck.

[Ilovetosuckdip]

Yup, Chander is DOPY alright, Hyck-Huck-Huck

Um I think they need to make a serious move to actually contend. Unfortunately, they are likely to be stuck with Amar'es contract since they decided to Amnesty an expiring contract (this year) in Billups.

Hopefully Amar'e recovers though. He's one of my favorite players, and should be accredited for making the Knicks relevant when he was there by himself. He didn't fear the fans, and he was in MVP talks last year until they dealt the core of the team away for Melo.

technically, by default, they will be one of the top 4 teams next season, due to boston losing pkayers and old age, d-rose injury, and magic probably blowing up due to howard

the top 2 teams imo for next year are indi and miami, maybe atl if they add a piece

[Ilovetosuckdip]

Knicks suck.

how objective

[D12 fan]

I don't think they have the right type of players to win a championship.Melo/Amare is a bad mix and they aren't true superstars.

[Ilovetosuckdip]

Yup, Chander is DOPY alright, Hyck-Huck-Huck

Um I think they need to make a serious move to actually contend. Unfortunately, they are likely to be stuck with Amar'es contract since they decided to Amnesty an expiring contract (this year) in Billups.

Hopefully Amar'e recovers though. He's one of my favorite players, and should be accredited for making the Knicks relevant when he was there by himself. He didn't fear the fans, and he was in MVP talks last year until they dealt the core of the team away for Melo.

The Lack of Defensive prowess ((E.g. Marion, Artest, Smith) or franchise type player (Lebron, Durant, Dirk) at those two starting forward positions will burn them almost every time.

they have 2 good defenders at pivotal spots: center and the 2guard, thats nothing to overlook, even tho melo,stat ,and lin are below average defenders

[Cal827]

technically, by default, they will be one of the top 4 teams next season, due to boston losing pkayers and old age, d-rose injury, and magic probably blowing up due to howard

the top 2 teams imo for next year are indi and miami, maybe atl if they add a piece

This is true, but I wouldn't really call them serious contenders though. Using the couple teams you mentioned:

Indy: Better overall team than NY, and will have a ton of cap space this offseason to get even farther away from them (E.g. What if they can Add Gordon and Resign Hibbert... Collison-Gordon-George-Granger-Hibbert is better than anything NY could put up... at least right now.)

Miami; Might be older, but with the franchise players in Wade and Lebron... they can destroy NY at the 2-3 (No Knick fan better bring up that bull, Melo is close to Lebron cause the fact is nobody is lol). Chalmers is a good defender (helped blocked off Lin), Bosh and Amar'e are washes of each other
and Chandler isn't exactly a scorer, and with the big 3 driving the net constantly against the lack of defenders at the forward positions, will likely get into foul trouble, which will offset some of his defensive impact. Also include that the Knicks best Perimeter defender in Shumpert is going to miss the season with the torn ACL.. I would expect Wade, Lebron and Bosh to relentlessly drive at the Knicks rim... I guess Wade's decline could have an impact though

I honestly think that only MIA or IND will win the east next year (assuming no horrible injury). Atlanta is probably going to be looking to blow up too since I believe that Smith asked to be dealt and JJ's contract is a huge burden.

[Ilovetosuckdip]

I don't think they have the right type of players to win a championship.Melo/Amare is a bad mix and they aren't true superstars.

imo, if they had the money, i would say you add a a marcus camby and a jason kidd, and a ray allen they would be alright

but allas, they will have no money