Improved Knicks may still be on the road to nowhere
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Five years ago, Amar'e Stoudemire walked in front of an array of New York cameras and boldly proclaimed, "The Knicks are back."
Robin Lopez and Arron Afflalo won't quite be singing the same tune half a decade later, and they certainly won't attract the attention Stoudemire did in joining the downtrodden Knicks, but the veteran duo were part of a quietly successful summer nonetheless.
So how, if at all, does that summer change the landscape for long-suffering Knicks fans?
As disastrous as last season's 65-loss campaign was, it may prove to be a blessing in disguise for New York.
The Knicks entered the 2014-15 campaign an aging playoff contender with an empty cupboard where most teams stock future assets and building blocks. Sixty-five losses later, the Knicks used the fourth pick to select Kristaps Porzingis and traded Tim Hardaway Jr. for another top-20 pick (Jerian Grant).
Along the way down the ignominious path that was 2014-15 at MSG, the Knicks shed J.R. Smith and Iman Shumpert, picking up a future second-rounder from the Cleveland Cavaliers. It wasn't a sexy deal, and it's arguable the Knicks could've squeezed a little more out of the Smith-Shump dump, but trading for future picks and selecting the consensus best player available in Porzingis over more NBA-ready talent, are promising signs that Phil Jackson's Knicks are finally building toward the future.
With Porzingis and Grant, 2015 All-Rookie second team member Langston Galloway, Kyle O'Quinn, and Derrick Williams, who New York took a low-risk flier on this summer, the Knicks have some tangible young talent to develop.
That young talent, a hopefully healthy Carmelo Anthony, and the addition of two legitimate starters in Lopez and Afflalo could have the Knicks back in the East playoff hunt come spring.
An improving team with playoff aspirations and an eye to the future - where's the downside?
Well, the Knicks are still paying for their ill-timed and ill-fated decisions to trade for Anthony ahead of his free agency in 2011 and to extend him in 2014.
As part of the original deal for Anthony with Denver, the Knicks gave the Nuggets the option to swap picks with them in 2015, which actually wouldn't have looked so bad given how lowly the Nuggets themselves should be this season.
But in their never-ending quest to find talent that meshes well around Anthony, the Knicks traded whichever of those picks Denver doesn't want to the Raptors, plus two second-round picks, for Andrea Bargnani. "Il Mago" went on to play just 71 games over two seasons with the Knicks.
That's how you end up with a 17-win team that made modest yet unspectacular gains in the offseason now heading into a year it doesn't have a draft pick to fall back on.
With the potential for another high pick out the window, and having committed the next five years and $124 million to Anthony last summer, the Knicks couldn't afford to sit idly by as big-name free agents once again snubbed Gotham in 2015.
Like many of the team's choices over the past several years, the decision to max out and extend Anthony when the Knicks did was questionable given where they were as an organization. But what wasn't questionable was their decision to chase second- and third-tier free agents this summer once the market's biggest fishes had already been caught.
Lopez should help New York's porous defense, and Afflalo, despite showing signs of regression last season, should still provide another scoring option to take some pressure off of Anthony.
The additions of solid role players like O'Quinn and Kevin Seraphin, meanwhile, indicate a sense of prudence, especially since New York didn't break the bank in turning its attention to the lower tiers of available talent.
The Knicks will win more than 17 games this season. They will be much deeper and more balanced, likely better on both sides of the ball, and could very well secure a low playoff seed.
But that improvement to mediocrity may be nothing more than a distraction for Knicks fans.
This is still a below-average team built around a 31-year-old, one-way player coming off of knee surgery after logging nearly 33,000 career minutes. The Knicks can't reap the rewards of failure through the draft, aren't good enough to make a deep postseason run, and despite their prime location and rich history, they struggle to lure top-tier free agents.
They can't be faulted for how they handled the offseason considering the errors made by previous regimes. It's a start - and the Knicks can be one of the league's most improved teams - but considering how far back from the pack they're starting and how far they still have to go, it's not yet enough to guarantee they're finally on the right track.