I wish these NBA previews will be useful for your analysis for this NBA season. Feel free to comment and to share your thoughts with me! I will also later announce my plans and goals for my NBA season. Stay tune!

The Knicks are not thinking about this season, in fact they would rather prefer to skip this season and immediately go to the summer of 2010. I'm not developing the Lebron James' soap in here (we are already tired of hearing that and we're still one year far from that), but the Knicks' plans are to collect two big fishes in the off season, however GM Donnie Walsh will need to be more persuasive than he was in this off season. I remember that the Knicks made a big push to sign free-agents Jason Kidd and Grant Hill, but both decided to stay in their teams. Then the Knicks flirted with Andre Miller, but Miller decided to sign with Portland. Later, Walsh began the conversations with restricted FA Ramon Sessions, but Sessions ended up signing an offer sheet from Minnesota, so the Knicks have only in Darko Milicic (besides their draft picks) their new addition and that is not good news for a team that ended up last season with a 32-50 record and wants to have a better season this year.

At least the Knicks were fun to watch, as they averaged over 105 points per game last season - only the Lakers, Warriors and Suns scored more. New York also attempted a league-high 27.9 three-pointers each night, but connected only 36% of them. They had 3 different 6-game losing streaks in December, February and March that hurt them, but they finished the season just seven games out of the playoffs.

It might sound a bit strange, but the Knicks' most important player going into this season is Eddy Curry. We all know that the Knicks will attack in the 2010 off season, but let's not forget that Curry is owed $11,276,863.00 for the 2010-2011 season and this instantly hurts Walsh's strategy. So Eddy Curry will need to bounce back from his inconsistent career to became a vital piece for the Knicks future because having an $11M albatross in their budget will not help them at all to pursue the biggest stars in this league. The Knicks need Curry to come into camp in shape (apparently Curry had weighed in at 317 pounds before the beginning of the training camp, which is about 40 pounds less than the nearly 360 he was tipping the scales at last year) and start playing some minutes and having some production. Honestly, I don't believe that in case he's playing well this season, a other team will show interest in him and would be willing to trade for him due to his problematic antics outside the court, but at least he can be a serviceable center for the Knicks and play for some of the money that he is currently earning.

Besides this problematic issue for the Knicks, the roster remains practically the same as last season and this isn't good news for the team. Mike D'Antoni's run and gun system requires their point guard to be a true playmaker who makes smart decisions in running fast defense-offense transitions. GM Donnie Walsh signed Chris Duhon last year and Duhon had a solid season, but at the same he showed as well that he cannot run the "show" alone in an 82-game marathon race. Over the first 50 games of the season, Duhon averaged 12.5 points and 8 assists, but in the last 2 months of the competition Duhon slowed down considerably averaging less than 9 points and only 5 assists per contest. He simply can't be on the floor for almost 40 minutes per game and that was the problem for him last season. The problem is that the Knicks didn't solve this problematic, as they will only have Nate Robinson and Gabe Pruitt as his backups, but neither are pure point guards.  

Nate Robinson is coming from a productive season, but it wasn't enough for him to earn a long term contract. Donnie Walsh offered him just a one season contract and Nate will have to prove that he belongs inside the future of this franchise. However I can't ignore that despite averaging 17.2 points per game, he attempted 13.9 shots per game in just 29.9 minutes per contest! In other words, Nate can't carry this team in his shoulders because he isn't a first pass player, rather he prefers to shoot the ball. (Unless Gabe Pruitt shows a huge improvement in this season, he will have a residual role in this season.)

With a similar contract (one year deal), David Lee will have to prove that he can help the team in the future. He is coming from a career season with 16 points per game, while shooting 54.9 % (seventh best in the league) and averaged 11.7 rebounds per game - third in the NBA. He also led the NBA in double-doubles and during the season, he accomplished 24 consecutive double-doubles. However, we cannot forget he benefited from playing in Mike D'Antoni's free-wheeling offense that boosts the overall stats for their players. Lee was the only player in the past that did put some hustle and heart on the court for the Knicks, but he still broke down many times defensively and he needs to improve on his toughness.

For the center position, the Knicks signed free agent Darko Milicic, whose career is known for being drafted before Dwayne Wade, Chris Bosh or Carmelo Anthony in the 2003 draft but he is still a decent player. This will be likely his last chance in the NBA to do something useful. D'Antoni's offensive system will help him to put some numbers in the scoreboard, but the Knicks are thinking more on his supposedly defensive toughness than in his ability to score. The Knicks drafted Jordan Hill (8th overall pick) and he has a legit NBA length and has a solid frame to begin with, so he should adapt quickly to the NBA. However, during summer league action in Las Vegas, he tended to fade away from the basket firing jump shots, instead of going straight up and drawing contact. The Knicks need badly to score easy points down low and Hill has the potential to be one of those needed players, but he needs to redefine his style.

The Knicks' leading scorer last season was Al Harrington. He played 68 games, averaging 20.7 points with 6.3 rebounds, but he fired away 16.8 shots per game (career high) and we are talking about a one dimensional player. He simply can't defend his opponent and like Nate Robinson, he is a player that constantly takes bad shots and makes silly plays. I remember that last season the Knicks lost two games against the Clippers thanks in part to a bizarre technical foul in the last seconds (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0F32IdR62aI).

Only two players have their future locked in the Knicks organization: Wilson Chandler and Danilo Gallinari. Chandler enjoyed a solid season last year, despite being only his second season and he is only 21 years. Chandler averaged 14.4 points and 5.4 boards, but lacked consistency. He shot 47.6 % from the field in April, but only 38.5 % in December, so the next step for him is to be consistent and productive the whole season. Meanwhile, Danilo Gallinari didn't have many opportunities last season due to back problems and played only 28 games, averaging just 14.8 minutes per game. His style is pretty similar to Hedo Turkoglu, as he has good size (6-10), possess good vision on the court (he may turn into a valuable point forward player for the Knicks) and has a solid jump shot. However he needs first to be 100% healthy and then to compete against more physical players than him in this league. This is going to be a pivotal season in his developing, because the Knicks have a short rotation and he will get plenty of minutes to play.

Finally the Knicks have in Larry Hughes their last dispensable piece of their roster. Hughes is playing his last year of a lucrative contract and surely the Knicks won't count on him in the future. However Hughes needs to prove to other's teams that he can be a valuable player and this will work favorably for the Knicks.

The Knicks will have their chances to fight for the playoffs this season, because the Eastern Conference is plenty of contenders in the bottom, but for a team that runs a run and gun system, they don't have the properly offensive talent to handle their defensive weaknesses.