In an off-season where most of the major free agents have stayed home so far, Amare Stoudemire and the Knicks agreed on a five-year, $100 million deal. New York has landed one of the top tier players available, but who will be joining Stoudemire in the Big Apple?
By: David Kay
If this is the only major free agent signing off the off-season for the Knicks, consider it a massive fail. Dream scenario A was landing LeBron and Bosh. The realistic fallback plan B was settling for Amare and Joe Johnson. That puts getting just Amare as a distant plan C, probably even worse. New York will be spending $100 million on a guy who was not even the best player on his team the past several seasons and in no way can carry a franchise to the promise land. To mortgage your future the past couple years and pretty much sacrifice any chance of putting a winning product on the floor, have high hopes heading into this off-season, and then ending up with only Amare… that has to be an absolute slap in the face to all invested in this franchise.
Now, there is still the slim chance of ‘Bron joining Amare in the Big Apple. If that happens, the Amare signing was well worth the $100 million and so was destroying your roster and trading away numerous first round draft picks. But if the expected scenario plays out where LeBron stays in Cleveland, Wade and Bosh go to Miami or Chicago, what is the next move for the Knicks? Re-sign David Lee? Pray the Spurs give you Tony Parker? Deal for Monta Ellis? Panic and throw a bunch of money at Ray Allen and Raymond Felton? Or (GASP) bring in Gilbert Arenas?
Anything less than LeBron or Wade was going to be a letdown for the Knicks. Having Amare as your alpha dog heading into the 2010-2011 season doesn’t guarantee you anything especially when your team still needs a center, starting backcourt, and depth at every position. So it’s too early to really determine the impact of this signing until the next domino falls for New York. But as of now, I wouldn’t be too psyched if I was a Knicks’ fan.
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