Via NY Post

The coaching staff will tell you nobody has worked harder than Douglas this offseason. The second-year Florida State product has done two-a-days at their Westchester compound since the beginning of May — save for a two-week break in July.

Douglas, the Knicks’ most tenacious defender, said one of the reasons he has worked so hard is he wants to be a leader this season. There were none during last season’s 29-53 campaign.

“I had an OK rookie year, but this year I want to be more vocal and be one of the leaders on the court,” Douglas said. “At the same time, you can’t be a leader if you don’t hold up your end of the bargain. If people are slacking, I’ll tell them. If I’m slacking, I want them to tell me.”

We’ve talked about at length how leadership was an issue in the locker room last year. No one is a bigger fan of what Douglas brings to the table than I am. I know the coach wants him to see the floor more and learn how to be a traditional point, but as far as I’m concerned the guy possesses all the great qualities in a young rotation guard. Defensively, he’s a pest on the ball and is tremendous in the passing lanes. How many steal/layups did he have when he started getting regular minutes last year? He fights over screens and can rebound. Offensively, he can knock down shots in catch and shoot opportunities, he can get past his man and hit mid range and he can move the ball when not looking to score. And he’s very adept at the pick and roll. Aside from defense, I wouldn’t say he’s great at anything yet, but he’s a complete player who I’m looking for to have a really strong sophomore campaign.

And it looks like he’s putting the work in to make that happen. Add that to the list of great qualities.

Via Hoopsworld

But as the season dragged on, Douglas seemed baffled by D’Antoni’s offense. He lost his place in the rotation and didn’t re-emerge until March.

After seeing his NBA dream turn into a brief nightmare, Douglas showed that unheralded players can thrive under D’Antoni if they have the right attitude.

“Since the first week of May I’ve been doing two-a-days in New York,” Douglas said. “I want to become a complete basketball player.”

And on this team, efforts like that don’t go unnoticed.

“Toney is going to be a competitor,” D’Antoni concluded. “He shoots the ball extremely well and he plays hard so we expect him to be in the rotation contributing next year.”

I don’t think TD was baffled by the offense, I think he was being asked to get more people involved. He’s worked on that all off season and thusfar in the summer league. He’s a perfect rotation guard. He can play behind, and learn from, Ray Felton, and will also see minutes with him. He’s already a well-above average defender. And when you look at the roster, the players that have been brought in, as I suspected, all are good defenders. They should be better as a team.

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Despite having told the University of Kentucky he is going to stay, John Calipari seems to have the NBA itch according to Yahoo.

“…Adrian Wojnarowski states that without the Wesley-James connection, Calipari would not be able to get an NBA position after his tenure in New Jersey.

“Rest assured, if Calipari finds a way to get one of these teams to believe his hiring will bring James – or keep him, in Cleveland’s case – he’ll be on his way back to the pros,” writes Wojnarowski.

A former Nets owner was asked his advice to any team considering hiring Calipari. “My advice?” the former owner asked after pausing. “Well, I guess my advice would be this: Don’t…”

I still don’t get how a guy who can’t win with the most pros in college is somehow the missing piece to an NBA franchise.

In other news, I spoke to yet another source with ties to Chris Bosh who told me there is “zero chance” Bosh goes back to Toronto. “It sounds like his bags are already packed, just don’t no where yet.” Expect the Raptors to shop for the best sign and trade, but expect agent Henry Thomas to be the orchestrator. And don’t expect Dallas, Bosh’s birthplace, to be of much interest to the All-Star forward.

I also heard from a pretty informative mole that Amar’e Stoudemire turned down a max-extension from the Suns during the season. That’s very interesting to me because the Suns can pay him a ton more money than anyone else. That also would appear to answer the “who are the max players” debate that we’ve been having. If Amar’e is a max player, then I pass if I’m the Knicks.

How good is Rajon Rondo? See, for me, it’s obvious that he had talent, but teams were scared off by his inability to shoot jumpers. In his rookie year he didn’t have to, then last year, minus Kevin Garnett, teams forced Rondo to beat them from the perimeter by sagging off him mid-range.This year it’s different. Garnett can play away from the basket and be a good safety valve for Rondo if he gets too deep and can’t finish. Bottom line for me is that there is no reason to believe that Toney Douglas can’t become an excellent NBA player if given the chance to develop with talent around him.  Maybe not Rondo good, but they have similar skill sets. Superior defenders, long arms which allows them to slither in the lane and finish, open court speed, etc. And Douglas is a better catch and shooter. That’s serious expectations from here, but Toney himself knows how good he wants to be and will work his tail off to get there.

We analyzed TD a few weeks back, and Big C from Fromthebaseline has taken it a step further. I couldn’t agree more that I’d like to see Douglas work on his mid-range game a bit more. That, to me, seems to be what separates guards in this league.

Click here for the full video breakdown.

This is a post that I’ve held off from for a long time. I wondered this way back in November, when Brandon Jennings took the league by storm. My friend Dan from knicksfan.net was chatting about it on Twitter last night.

I’ve been somewhat critical of Jennings, but the addition of John Salmons (a TKB favorite) has helped Jennings and the Bucks to the 5th seed in the Eastern Conference. Jennings, after hitting the rookie wall at 100mph, has regrouped and been very efficient over the past few weeks.

To me, Douglas is a classic two-way player. This is not to say that Jennings doesn’t play the passing lanes exceedingly well, he does, but Douglas is the better defender. It will be interesting to see how Jennings plays defensively in the playoffs, as it’s a given that he will be posted up by a bigger guard matchup. If I’m the Bucks, I’m hoping to face the Hawks, since Jennings and Mike Bibby would somewhat negate that.

Jennings is younger, but from a scouting standpoint I like Douglas’ frame better. Something about Jennings’ legs scares me a bit more than his attitude, which came into question before, during and after the draft. Jennings, in all fairness, aside from an issue with Twitter where he was fined $7,500 dollars, hasn’t been a problem whatsoever.

Douglas appears to be a more efficient shooter and maybe scorer, but the team still may not be sure he’s the PG of the future. If the team has Douglas coming off the bench, though, that would be a sign of ridiculous back court depth. Jennings has proven to be an effective starter, but Douglas in his short tenure has really opened a lot of people’s eyes.

That said.

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Via Denver Post

“…When Anthony came out, he talked about the gall of Gallinari, who was trash-talking with the all-star. And he also discussed the not-so-ambiguous comments Knicks president Donnie Walsh made to the New York Post, suggesting that even though the Knicks have money to spend this summer, they are looking at rebuilding over the next couple years — and Melo could be available after 2011.

“I really don’t know what’s going to happen the next year,” Anthony said. “I don’t know what’s going to happen. But I don’t see why anybody wouldn’t want to play here in New York…”

As I’ve said, Melo is great leverage for this summer. Would Lebron allow for the opportunity to pass him by with the idea of having to GET THROUGH the Knicks should Carmelo make the jump? This is what the plan is about to me. They have the opportunity to give Lebron everything, should he pass the team can add pieces this season in the form of a max player and vets maybe on 1 year deals, the possibility of sign and trades, then have space to add the game changer.

At least that’s what I’ve always felt.

What does that mean for fans? Well, if Lebron stays,  I would think a team ready to make the playoffs in the bottom tier and make a push. Have another year of development with added piece, particularly defensively, around Gallinari, Toney Douglas and Wilson Chandler. The chance to add a 1st round pick this year and/or two possible quality second rounders as well.

Then be ready to become a Eastern Conference contender in 2011 if they can convince Melo, who doesn’t seem like he needs all that much convincing.

With his solid play, Toney Douglas has grabbed control of the starting point guard spot. It appears that Mike D’Antoni is willing to live with the rookie’s mistakes, highlighted by yesterday’s last few minutes. To summarize, Douglas committed to his drive and was exposed by Jared Jeffries.

In doing so, D’Antoni has turned to Chris Duhon to apparently sure up the back up minutes, mainly because Sergio Rodriguez has the tendency to cough the ball up.

Case in point was the game against Atlanta, the last game S-Rod played 20+ minutes, he turned the ball over 6 times. Since joining the Knicks at the deadline, Sergio has 57 assists and 32 turnovers.

He’s young and I like the way he plays at a fast speed, but you can’t turn it over that much.

Obviously, Duhon is plugged back in because of injuries, but Rodriguez hasn’t overly impressed and he has been given the opportunity. If he wants back in the lineup, and he should be given more time to be evaluated, he has to value the basketball.

Steve Adamek warns Knicks fans not to get too excited just yet about Toney Douglas considering the Knicks have seen players have break outs on losing teams.

I said on Twitter the other night that I hoped no one started comparing TD to Frank Williams. Instead, Adamek points out Mardy Collins, which is a more fair comparison.

“…We’re not trying to to throw cold water on rookie Toney Douglas’ emergence the past week, for he has provided contagious energy and shown some of what he did the first month of the season, before getting buried on the bench by Mike D’Antoni’s Coaching 101 decision to play his veterans because he thought they gave him the best chance to win.

But as Dallas Green used to say when he managed the Mets (in a much saltier way), beware what you see in March (spring training) and in September (for an out-of-contention team). D-Green also carried that over into batting practice, when he called the once-promising Ryan Thompson “the best 4 o’clock hitter in baseball.”

So with the Knicks out of it, let’s not get too carried away by Douglas, or Bill Walker, for that matter. Golfers even say it’s easier to shoot 63 on the weekend when you’re not in contention. Same for those two in a basketball sense…”

Steve is spot on with his chosen sports analogies, particularly Ryan “the whiff” Thompson, and thankfully he passed on Frank Williams who had some flashes a few years back.I actually was a fan of Williams, but he never got consistent minutes and was later shipped to Chicago in the Jamal Crawford deal. Williams had toughness and strength but wasn’t a great perimeter shooter and he never seemed to have it upstairs.

I don’t think it’s pouring cold water, it’s being realistic.

Collins represents a bigger body of work in terms of a comparison and had some solid games, but the guy just couldn’t shoot here, either from the line or from behind the arc. He could drive and create a bit but he would pass on open looks. You can do that on a bad team, not on a good one.

Douglas is the better, more complete player, and seems to have more of a killer instinct, even if it’s in bad games. My barometer with these guys is part speculation. I never thought Collins’ lack of perimeter game could allow him to sustain in the NBA. Now he can’t get burn in LA and could be out of the league soon as quickly as Williams vanished. I think Douglas is on his way to a long NBA career. Again, he has more complete skills and should be a key part of team moving forward.

And to be clear about a possible sign and trade for Chris Bosh, I’d be hard-pressed to move TD, but if a PG were to come back then you of course have to consider it. I just believe he’s going to be here moving forward.

For a more comprehensive look on the Collins/Douglas debate, check out my boys Dan and Jon at knicksfan.net.

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Tim Shea is a really strong basketball eye and mind who contributes to Berman’s blog and he had some interesting things to say about Sergio Rodriguez, who hasn’t been all too impressive since being dealt to NY from the Kings at the deadline.

“…Sergio’s a nice young man, easy going, he has good instincts and he knows how to play but he had not yet learned how to win. Sergio is and was immature.

Sergio can run. He likes transition basketball, makes the fancy play, the show-time play, but is still an inconsistent shooter and makes questionably decisions at PG. His D has gotten better but has big lapses.

Rudy Fernandez, Ricky Rubio realized they should wait and mature while Sergio went right away, too young and not ready. It’s hurt him big time. He’s a talent but at the NBA level and under the bright lights of MSG, he was not grown up enough to handle the heat…”

I like the speed Sergio plays at, but he has to do a better job of controlling the flow. He gets out of control sometimes. His shot has actually surprised me, I thought it was going to be worse but he has good form and confidence. But defensively he’s sub par, which is why Toney Douglas deserves the look.

- I think the biggest thing I took from watching “Winning Time” was the depiction of Larry Brown and why he ultimately can only remain with certain teams for relatively short periods of time:

Players don’t the guy, but you don’t have to really like someone to have success in this league.

I really appreciated Reggie Miller saying that the Pacer players couldn’t stand Brown, whom he dubbed a perfectionist “in an imperfect game.” Brown expects the game to be played the right way and the Pacers really did play the right way. Of course he does, he’s a snob, he went to North Carolina. Reggie must have felt the same way about how he did things, UCLA knows a thing or two about hoops. Ultimately, the Pacers lacked superior talent but, like the Knicks,  never took a possession off and played as one until they needed Reggie to make shots.

In reference to the team not liking Brown, Miller followed with the comment that the players “had to do the right thing.” Spike Lee irony aside, doing the right thing is such a novel concept isn’t it? Make no mistake, by “doing the right thing” Miller meant “internally when it came to the organization the players would shut up, not bitch, come to work every day and play hard,” which they did.

I hear a lot of people defend Stephon Marbury in regards to how Mike D’Antoni handled his situation. It’s a fair point. D’Antoni, it appears, had no intention of playing Marbury and should have told him that much or at least someone in the organization should have given him the word. Maybe D’Antoni was open to playing him until Steph learned he wasn’t going to start and Starbury popped off. Who knows.

What we do know is that Steph popped off to Larry Brown, and it made for an uncomfortable locker room. Steph openly called out Brown for questioning his manhood, a practice that Brown made famous for with Chauncey Billups and Allen Iverson- who both made it to the Finals with Brown on the sidelines.

We also know that Steph went off on Isiah. There were rumors that Antonio Davis, a veteran to Brown’s act, was mocked during his time in NY and demanded a trade. Imagine that. A veteran of the Knicks-Pacers battles and a real professional, was ostracized for being, well, professional. I’m not saying I know what happened, but based on plenty of conversations, I have an idea. And that’s not to single out Steph who was the franchise player and relished the role, it’s simply to make the point that Brown’s Pacers, as well as his effort with the 76ers in 2001 and obviously the Detroit Pistons in 2004, exemplified doing “right thing.” And it highlights just how wretched the Knicks locker room was during Brown’s one year here. The coach’s rift with Thomas, to me, had more to do with Larry saying, “what on earth have you assembled here?” and less to do with “I’m a tyrant.”

What does that mean for this edition of the team? Well, I think it’s justifiable to have questions about the coach. I believe he wants players to do the “right thing” but he can’t enforce it. At the end of the day there has to be a belief that even though you may not like your coach you can still play at a really high level and the Pacers and virtually every team Brown ever coached, except the Knicks, proved that.

- So Toney Douglas now has the chance that everyone has been asking for and I’m happy for him. It has been talked about often that D’Antoni’s rational behind playing Chris Duhon was twofold. One, it was because he was an efficient assist-turnover player (stats wise- I, of course, maintain that bad shots on a poor offensive rebounding team count as turnovers and Duhon’s pulls from 3 several time per game should have been tacked on to his A/T ratio), but secondly because D’Antoni hopes Duhon, and other veterans, can sign contracts next year.  (more…)

There is buzz that Al Harrington will not be in the starting line up tonight from what I’m hearing.

Now, this doesn’t fall under the category of shakeups as it’s been done before.

Meanwhile, I totally agree with the masses that Toney Douglas needs a look. I’m still very high on TD and think that he should play. D’Antoni has played Eddie House and Tracy McGrady, along with obviously Sergio Rodriguez at the one at times. I think Douglas has the mind set not to let this be a huge deal seeing that he most likely will be on the roster next year unless a deal comes along, but still, play the kid one game 30 minutes and see what happens.

I bet he’d be really productive. Plus, he’d instantly be the team’s best on ball defender in my opinion.

To me, omitting Douglas has been the coach’s biggest mistake for that reason. At least he’d provide some semblance of resistance from the perimeter. We’re talking about the ACC defensive player of the year.

Douglas has a quiet confidence and hasn’t complained, which is a great quality moving forward. But you can imagine he’s probably frustrated, and needs to get a look, especially when it’s been obvious that McGrady hasn’t bounced back well on back-to-backs.

Via Hoopsworld:

“…The Knicks grand plan is certainly no secret.  Since the moment GM Donnie Walsh was hired, his primary objective was blatantly clear: To create and maintain as much cap space as possible in order to go shopping in the summer of 2010.

Still, although Donnie has done a stellar job paring down the Knicks payroll and shedding some of the franchise’s most expensive and debilitating contracts, the total amount of money the Knicks will have to play with is still unknown.  The salary cap is essentially determined as a fraction of total ‘Basketball Related Income,” and that BRI amount won’t be known until later this year.  New York will definitely have enough cap space to offer/sign one superstar to a max-level contract, but not the two studs some New Yorkers were hoping for.  Depending on where the cap is set – some doomsday scenarios had the cap falling all the way down to $50.4 million – the Knicks may be left only about $20 million under the cap.

Moreover, having cash and cap space is only part of the equation.  In order for Walsh to be able to entice potential free agents, he needs to be able to sell the Knicks as an organization with attractive talent already on the roster.  Regardless of which elite free agent the Knicks target, all of the top-notch players on the market are going to want a chance to win.  The most sought-after free agents aren’t going to join a team without legitimate championship aspirations.  Thus, Donnie Walsh is going to have to be able sell their core foundation as one worthy of serious consideration.

And, when discussing the future, the Knicks two most promising and prominent building blocks are their athletic wings: Danilo Gallinari and Wilson Chandler…

…

The other two Knickerbockers that will almost certainly be on the team on Opening Night next season are the two draft picks from the 2009 draft: Jordan Hill and Toney Douglas.  Knicks fans are hoping that these two youngsters will become an integral part of the group that turns the franchise’s fortunes around.

Selected eighth overall last June, Hill was a highly touted low-post force coming out of the University of Arizona.  Jordan finished his three-year career at Arizona ranked among the school’s career leaders in points, rebounds, blocks, and field goal percentage.  As a junior, he averaged career-highs of 18.3 points (on 54% shooting) and 11 rebounds per contest, which earned him all All-Pac-10 honors.

However, Hill spent most of his first few months in the NBA on Mike D’Antoni’s bench (while a few other late lottery picks – notably Brandon Jennings – burst out of the gates.)  But Hill appears to have slowly but surely worked his way into D’Antoni’s rotation.  Hill has played double-digit minutes in each of the Knicks last four games, and is averaging 6.5 points on 57% shooting over that stretch.  Hill is raw and still has to make giant strides (especially on the defensive end of the floor) before he contribute on a consistent basis, but flashes of that tantalizing skill set make occasional appearances…more.” (more…)