Despite early reports that stated Chris Paul wanted to become a New York Knick, the storied franchise lost the superstar point guard to the Los Angeles Clippers … who also picked up former Knicks guard Chauncey Billups after the team waived him last week.

The Knicks just picked up a new veteran point guard to replace the position on Monday (December 19), when they announced that they’ve signed Baron Davis.

NY picked up Davis — who had become a free agent after being waived by the Cleveland Cavaliers last week — for a reported one-year deal worth $2.5 million.

However, according to ESPN.com, it’s unclear when the NBA vet would play at Madison Square Garden, because he’s currently sidelined with a herniated disk in his back.

A source tells the network Davis could be out for 8-10 weeks.

Davis played in 58 games last season, averaging 13.1 points and 6.7 assists for the Clippers and Cavaliers. The two-time NBA All-Star has averaged 16.5 points and 7.3 assists since being drafted by the Charlotte Hornets with the #3 overall pick in the 1999 draft.

“Everybody knows what he can do when he’s healthy and when he’s focused,” Knicks star Carmelo Anthony said of his new teammate. “I was here for two months last year and we played (the Cavaliers) quite a bit of time when I got here and he was healthy then. They beat us and he was a big part of those wins.

“When BD (Davis) is healthy, he’s one of the best.”

The Lakers and the Heat were also said to be interested in Davis after he was waived. However, the Knicks beat them to the punch.

Read More: Carmelo Anthony (F – NYK), Raymond Felton (G – POR), Mike Bibby (G – NYK), Tyson Chandler (C – NYK), Chauncey Billups (G – LAC), Jamal Crawford (G – POR), Jared Jeffries (F – NYK), Renaldo Balkman (F – NYK), Amare Stoudemire (F – NYK), Devin Green (G – NYK), Danilo Gallinari (F – DEN), Bill Walker (G – NYK), Chris Hunter (C – NYK), Toney Douglas (G – NYK), Jerome Jordan (C – NYK), Landry Fields (G – NYK), Josh Harrellson (C – NYK), Iman Shumpert (G – NYK), New York Knicks

SB Nation New York will be running a five-part season preview of the 2011-12 New York Knicks, culminating right before the start of the season on Christmas Day.

Part I: The Stars

Part II: The Non-Stars

I was originally going to devote a section of this five-part preview as “The Bench”, but I opted to go with “The Non-Stars”. The reasoning behind that is fairly simple: outside of Carmelo Anthony, Amare Stoudemire and Tyson Chandler (who we discussed in Part I), what’s the difference between who’s on the bench and who starts at the guard positions – likely Landry Fields and Toney Douglas? I’m not going to make a mistake and say that the rest of the Knicks roster isn’t important, because it is. It’s actually very important, and one of the players were look at in this Part II we’ll discuss in-depth in another section of the preview, The X Factor (oh, the anticipation!). But the three most important Knicks are the stars. What everyone else does will go a long way towards where the Knicks eventually end up this season, but those three should be looked at separately. That’s what we’ll do in this section as we zero in on the rest of the Knicks’ roster. 

Toney Douglas

Douglas is going to battle rookie Iman Shumpert and dinosaur veteran Mike Bibby at point guard. Mike D’Antoni has pretty much said it’s his job to lose, but with the way Douglas played in the playoffs in Chauncey Billups’ absence last year, it’s not a given that he won’t lose the job. Douglas is way more of a combo guard than a true point. D’Antoni has insinuated that he’ll look to run the offense more through Anthony, using him as a point-forward.. If that is indeed the case, the most important thing Douglas can do is knock down shots from distance. Right now, the Knicks lack a bit of outside shooting (further explained by their pursuit of Jamal Crawford), and Douglas will need to pick up that slack.

Landry Fields

What a strange season last year was for Landry Fields. It pretty much boiled down to pre-trade Fields and post-trade Fields, and post-trade Fields wasn’t very good. In the Knicks’ final 17 games last year, Fields hit double digits in points just five times. It’s strange because Fields isn’t a player that demands the ball or needs it to be valuable. He’s a good rebounder for a guard and a solid defender. Maybe the trade coincided with Fields hitting the rookie wall towards the end of the season. Maybe he just meshed better with Danilo Gallinari, Raymond Felton, etc. It could probably go either way for Fields this year. Like Douglas, Fields will need to knock down shots from the perimeter, which he did quite well last year (to a very solid Effective Field Goal Percentage of .568). Fields has to find his niche on this team soon or three years from now we might be having the “What the hell ever happened to Landry Fields?” conversation.

Mike Bibby

I’m directly on the fence with this signing by the Knicks. Bibby can still hit form behind the arc, which the Knicks desperately need, especially off the bench. To me, the effectiveness of Bibby for the Knicks rests with D’Antoni and how he uses him. With the crazy schedule this year, Bibby can’t be playing a ton of minutes, almost ever. Why can I see D’Antoni forgetting this, falling in love with Bibby’s range, and having nights where he plays 30 minutes? I’m having nightmares of Tyson Chandler getting in foul trouble and D’Antoni putting out a lineup of Bibby-Douglas-Bill Walker-Anthony-Stoudemire (a team that would struggle to defend five traffic cones) for an extended period of time. If D’Antoni uses Bibby effectively — 15-20 minutes a night in the right situations — I think he can be a valuable piece. He fits the “cheap veteran who still does one thing very well” mold that a lot of winning teams have. Let’s hope he doesn’t wear down before the playoffs.

Iman Shumpert

Shumpert seems like the absolute anti-D’Antoni player. Every scouting report I’ve read talks about his athleticism first, and his offensive ability second. Which is completely fine, by the way. I just wonder if D’Antoni will find enough minutes for a guy who doesn’t give the team much offensively. If so, I think Knicks fans could fall in love with Shumpert, who from all accounts is an athletic freak and a great defender.

Bill Walker

Is Billy Walker really still on the Knicks? Jeez. He’s going to get minutes too, given the crazy schedule. He’ll hit his share of threes and that’s about it.

Jared Jeffries

Jeffries is a solid rotation forward who knows the system and the coach loves. He was always coming back to the Knicks, so deal with it. And really, as long as he’s not the intended receiver during a crucial last possession in a playoff game with a one score deficit, then everything will be okay. With Tyson Chandler and Jerome Jordan in tow, Jeffries slots in as the backup to Stoudemire. He won’t play nearly as much as he has in the past under D’Antoni, so he’ll solely be in there to take charges, grab some rebounds and use up fouls. Which is about all he can do anyway, so this is a good thing.

Jerome Jordan

The Knicks have brought Jordan over from Slovenia, as he’s been based in Europe  since the Knicks acquired his right on Draft Day 2010. Comparisons have been drawn to last year’s 7-foot project Timofey Mozgov. This is going to sound strange, but if Jordan can give the Knicks what Mozgov showed towards the middle of the season (enough for some really strange people to complain about his inclusion in the Carmelo trade), the Knicks would sign up for that in a heartbeat. When was the last time the Knicks had two legitimate 7-footers at center? What other team in the NBA has that? We don’t have any reason to believe Jordan has supreme talent or will be a huge difference maker, but for a team that used Jared Jeffries at center a lot over the past few years, having more legit size cannot be looked at as a bad thing.

Renaldo Balkman

I guess it’s actually possible given the schedule we’re going to see this year that Balkman may actually get some minutes. It won’t be a lot though, and that’s positive, since Renaldo Balkman lacks all the requisite skills that a real NBA player possesses.

Josh Harrellson

New York Knicks fans, meet your version of Brian Scalabrine. The Garden will go NUTS when Harrellson comes into blowout games.

Chris Hunter and Devin Green

The Knicks simply signed these guys to fill out their roster so that they could meet league guidelines and take part in the season.

So as you can see, the play of the Knicks’ stars is going to be extremely important. The few cogs outside of Anthony, Stoudemire and Chandler are Douglas, Fields, Shumpert and Bibby. Each have question marks heading into the season. There have been rumors floating around that the Knicks are interested in Michael Redd. If Redd has anything left in the tank, it’s a low-risk move that’s worth making. You can never have too many shot-makers, and the Knicks still do need some. I’d expect the Knicks’ roster towards the middle of the season to look a bit different, as they’ll continue to try and acquire some much-needed depth. But with the regular season fast-approaching, these are the guys they’ll go to work with.

SB Nation New York will be running a five-part season preview of the 2011-12 New York Knicks, culminating right before the start of the season on Christmas Day.

Part I: The Stars

The New York Knicks finally have actual aspirations. For the past decade-plus, it hasn’t been about winning a championship. How could it have been? Years and years went by with Isiah Thomas souring the Knicks’ brand with gross mismanagement, truly the darkest days the franchise has ever seen. When Isiah was finally, mercifully gone, Donnie Walsh was brought in to clean up the disaster. He did an admirable job, hiring Mike D’Antoni as head coach and gutting the team of its’ awful contracts and giving it an actual direction.

But the Walsh/D’Antoni Era, from 2008-09 until the end of last year, was still not about about truly competing for a title. It started out as a plan for 2010 and LeBron James. When that failed but netted Amare Stoudemire, then it became about getting Stoudemire superstar help. Last year, when Carmelo Anthony joined the fray, it still didn’t seem enough. The Miami Heat had three stars, and a toast at Carmelo’s wedding in the summer by Chris Paul gave Knicks fans and the organization dreams of their own trifecta of superstars. They just had to have a third superstar. It was the new NBA blueprint, right?

Yet in early December of this year, when the lockout was lifted and teams could start building again, the Knicks seem to have made a philosophical shift away from Paul. It would be silly to say that they no longer wanted him, but when the trade offers for Paul were coming in, it became increasingly apparent that the Knicks no longer had a realistic chance at landing him. They had to try something else, and it’s a good thing they didn’t wait another year. The splash came in the form of Tyson Chandler, a move away from the flash of a Anthony/Stoudemire/Paul tandem and more in line with the Knicks of old. Chandler gives them the size and rugged attitude that The Garden faithful has always embraced.

In the NBA, you need stars, but you also need your stars to be themselves. The Chandler move allows Stoudemire and Anthony to remain themselves. Had the Knicks gotten Paul, either Stoudemire or Anthony would have had to take a huge backseat. It’s just the way it happens with the three-superstar mold. The casualty of the Heat’s version of this last year was Chris Bosh. Sure, Bosh is clearly the least talented out of LeBron and Dwyane Wade, so that should be the case. But what’s the point of paying Chris Bosh to be on your team if he’s not going to be, you know, Chris Bosh? If Paul was a Knick, the fall guy would have been Stoudemire. Whatever you think of Stoudemire’s play — his lack of defense and a general misuse of his size — he played at an MVP-level for long stretches last season. If he’s your second-best player, that’s a good thing.

Ask this question: would the Heat be better served with their current three, or with Tyson Chandler instead of Chris Bosh? The Knicks made the decision to go big, go defensive, and create maybe the best frontcourt in the entire league by signing Chandler. Sure, the Knicks did struggle last year after the trade, and Anthony and Stoudemire didn’t perfectly mesh. That will have to happen for the Knicks to really contend. But you can certainly make the case that they have a better chance of meshing with Tyson Chandler patrolling the paint than with Chris Paul running the point. Chandler isn’t the player Paul is — he might be the best point guard of his generation — but it’s difficult to imagine that Stoudemire and Anthony would have maxed out their potential with Paul as a teammate. All three of those players need the ball to be their most effective, especially Stoudemire and Anthony. Chandler doesn’t. He’ll rebound, defend, block shots and score on put-backs, and that will still allow the offense to run through Anthony and Stoudemire.

Now the Knicks have their stars, and they finally aren’t waiting for anything (except a coach maybe…but we’ll get to that later on in this season preview). Are they a true title contender this year? They’re probably a few pieces away. But if they get in the playoffs, they won’t be as easy an out as they were last year. They could win a round. They could win two rounds. And if that happens, who knows? It’s going to be an uncertain year with a whirlwind 66-game schedule in 120 days followed by a playoffs with a lot less off days than usual. What’s certain, though, is that the Knicks have a chance. They’re not just back to being relevant, they’re a force. And you can thank their stars for that. 

Former National Basketball
Association player Cuttino Mobley sued Madison Square Garden LP,
parent of the New York Knicks, alleging that the team
discriminated against him based on what it perceived to be a
disability.

Mobley, who hasn’t played since the 2008-09 season, says
the Knicks ended his career by having him declared medically
ineligible to play because of a heart ailment, according to the
complaint filed today in U.S. District Court in Manhattan.

The Knicks said in a statement that Mobley’s lawsuit has no
merit.

Mobley, 36, was diagnosed in 1999 with hypertrophic
cardiomyopathy, a thickening of the heart wall, according to the
complaint. He had been medically cleared every year, by every
team he played for, subject to his signing a waiver of
liability, according to the document.

The Knicks, who were aware of his condition, agreed to
waive a physical examination of Mobley prior to trading for the
shooting guard in 2008, according to the complaint.

Instead of sending Mobley to the cardiologist who had
treated him for many years, the Knicks selected Mark Estes and
then Barry Maron who, according to the suit, were well-known
opponents of allowing players with Mobley’s condition to play.
Both said Mobley shouldn’t play.

The Knicks saved about $19 million by having Mobley
declared medically ineligible to play because insurance paid the
player’s salary, according to the complaint. The salary also is
forgiven from luxury tax payments, which teams pay for being
over the roster spending limit.

“The Knicks’ actions effectively deprived Mobley of the
ability to play professional basketball, not only for the
Knicks, but for the rest of his career,” according to the
complaint.

Mobley hasn’t officially retired and several teams
expressed interest in signing him but backed out because he had
been medically disqualified from playing for the Knicks,
according to the complaint. The teams weren’t identified.

The Knicks said in their statement that on the day of his
retirement, “Cuttino publicly stated that he had no choice but
to follow the advice of the doctors and step away from the
league.”

“Although we understand Cuttino Mobley’s frustration with
the effects of his illness, we are extremely disappointed in his
recent actions,” according to the team statement.

Mobley seeks unspecified monetary damages, 25 percent of
which he said he would donate to the Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy
Association.

The disease killed Reggie Lewis of the Boston Celtics and
Hank Gathers of Loyola Marymount University. The Knicks acquired
Eddy Curry in a 2005 trade with the Chicago Bulls, who had asked
the player to take a DNA test to determine whether he was
susceptible to the condition. Curry had missed games due to an
irregular heartbeat.

The case is Mobley v. Madison Square Garden LP, 11-08290,
U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).

To contact the reporter on this story:
Scott Soshnick in New York at
ssoshnick@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Michael Sillup at msillup@bloomberg.net

“The Associaton”, the NBA’s PC-version of “Hard Knocks“, is reportedly interested in following the Knicks around for a season. The Celtics and Lakers were the show’s subjects during its first two seasons. From the NY Post: “The NBA reality show, ‘The Association’ has contacted the Knicks about being the subject of their third season, according to a television source. ‘The Association’ — an up-close, behind-the-scenes series — is similar to HBO’s NFL documentary series ‘Hard Knocks’ that once followed the Jets. Talks with the Knicks are only in their initial stage. Last season, ‘The Association’ followed the Celtics with Donnie Wahlberg as narrator. Two years ago, it featured the Lakers, and Andy Garcia was the narrator. The Knicks intrigue NBA TV because of the newly transformed Garden and their transformed team with the Big Apple 3 of Amar’e Stoudemire, Carmelo Anthony and Chauncey Billups.”

However, there will soon be the sound of basketballs bouncing and sneakers squeaking in “The World’s Most Famous Arena.”

As it has for every season since 1934, college basketball takes its turn on the grand stage.

“This is the Mecca for college basketball. There’s something magical when you walk in,” said Scott O’Neil, the president of Madison Square Garden Sports. “I don’t know if it’s the history of the 77 years, or the slate of games we have. … There’s not a place like this in the world.

“The Palestra is an amazing fieldhouse,” he said of Philadelphia’s fabled building, “but this is an arena, the best basketball arena in the world.”

This season’s schedule gets under way Tuesday night with the Champions Classic and that doubleheader will start with a chance at college basketball history.

No. 6 Duke plays Michigan State in the opener and Blue Devils coach Mike Krzyzewski — barring a huge upset in the first two games — should be going for victory 903 which would move him past Bob Knight, his college coach, and into the top spot on the Division I wins list.

The second game that night has No. 2 Kentucky against No. 13 Kansas. Just another doubleheader New York fans have come to expect at the Garden in recent years.

The roster of college teams gets off to an impressive start every season because the Big East Conference plays its tournament there every March. But Duke, Pittsburgh, Gonzaga, Kentucky, Kansas and Texas have become, if not yearly, regular visitors to New York City.

“The Knicks and Rangers, their fans are fantastic, passionate and that certainly runs through the base of New York,” O’Neil said, “but there’s something different when it’s your alma mater and when you see the arena split with fans on each side. It’s different.”

And it’s not just those high-profile national programs that get a chance to go up and down the Garden court.

St. John’s plays a portion of its home schedule at Madison Square Garden, something it has done for more than eight decades. Other New York-area programs get their chance to play there as well. This season Iona, Long Island University, St. Francis, N.Y. and Siena will be part of doubleheaders with a St. John’s game.

“I just think it means a ton, it legitimizes a program like ours when you get a chance to play in the Garden,” said LIU coach Jim Ferry, whose Blackbirds are the preseason favorites in the Northeast Conference. “It’s a great opportunity for our school, our kids, for me. I grew up here but never played there.”