TURNING POINT
Lin is OK, but Knicks should make dash at Nash
Here’s to the winners from Thursday night’s NBA draft. The Hornets and the Knicks. The Hornets got Anthony Davis, as expected, so their rebuilding program is now off to a pretty good start. Maybe even a great one.
Whether the shot-swatting unibrow can be a force in the NBA, a la Chris Paul, remains to be seen. But the Hornets still had a more productive time in Newark in five minutes than the Nets had in this same arena over two years.
Even without a pick in the first round, the Knicks were on the verge of a major victory. Across the Hudson, they were shaping up as winners in law offices in Manhattan. As the draft was getting started, the league and players union were busy working on a compromise that will allow the Knicks to keep Jeremy Lin, while also creating another salary slot for a potential free-agent signee this weekend.
But unlike the Hornets, who are trying to rebuild with a new owner and recover from Paul’s trade to the Clippers, the Knicks can’t claim an overwhelming victory.
Even with more cap flexibility, it doesn’t mean that Mike Woodson’s team can get Steve Nash or Ray Allen. It doesn’t mean the Knicks will be able to land Jason Terry or O.J. Mayo, who are also on their official free-agent wish list.
Lin apparently will get some form of his “early Bird rights’’ in the compromise. So he’ll cash in. But the extra cap space is expected to be minimal, and maybe not enough to sway Allen or Terry to join a team already featuring two ball hogs in Carmelo Anthony and Amar’e Stoudemire.
But for a team that has to get dramatically better in its backcourt, it’s still some money to play with. It’s still something to dangle in front of players who might be willing to come to the Garden, even if their touches are not guaranteed.
We know that the Knicks will overpay to keep Lin, a restricted free agent starting late Saturday night at a stroke past midnight. That’s a lock and not necessarily a good thing, either. Before injuring his knee, he was out on the court for only a small sample size. But he’ll get his loot because the Knicks realize he’s a marketing man’s dream.
It just doesn’t mean that over the course of a full season that he will translate to Woodson’s system as well as he played in Mike D’Antoni’s offense for a matter of weeks. That’s why the Knicks need to take a run at Nash, a two-time MVP playmaker who commands enough respect among players to make the Anthony-Stoudemire alliance work. But there’s already talk that he doesn’t want that headache and will look to take his talents elsewhere, if he doesn’t resign with the Suns.
So it looks as if the Knicks are stuck. They’ve poured almost all their resources into a frontcourt that hasn’t clicked. Their backcourt is shaping up as Lin and fillin-the-blank at shooting guard. That’s not scaring the Miami Heat any.
But draft night proved to be a boon for the Hornets, especially if the team’s second pick works out as well as Doc Rivers hopes. Austin Rivers, son of the Celtics coach and taken at No. 10 by the Hornets, will get to run the floor and throw alley-oop passes to Davis and also shoot the basketball. Not a bad job to land after playing one season at Duke.
It has the look of a great tandem, a winning tandem, down the line. But perhaps not right away, because let’s not forget that the West is loaded, starting with the Thunder’s great young All-NBA tandem of Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook. The Hornets’ own division is a killer, with San Antonio, Dallas and Memphis.
“To get down there and have this challenge we have ahead of us is pretty cool,’’ Rivers said. “We’ve been friends together the last couple of years. To take this journey together is pretty cool.’’
It could be great, it could be something special, if Davis develops into a true franchise star. The best thing about him now is that he’s not coming into the league thinking he’s going to dominate. “No, not right away,” Davis said. “I know I have a lot of work to do. Guys have been in the league way longer than me. This is their job. If I do have an impact, that’s awesome. But I don’t plan on it.” Maybe not yet. But just give it some time.