With a season that looks to be over in about a week, I've been thinking through what the Knicks can do in the offseason to get better. And my attention has turned to the Brooklyn Nets.
As it stands, the Nets will probably lose Deron Williams unless they can get him some better teammates. However, they have a lot of cap space and can take back more in salaries than they give up in order to make it happen. Which brings me to my suggestion: sign-and-trade free agent Kris Humphries to the Knicks for Amar'e Stoudemire. Stoudemire could be the type of running mate that gets Williams excited to stay, would have more room to operate than he does currently, and presents an interesting pairing at forward with Gerald Wallace.
For the Knicks, Humphries is a much better fit. He's a really good rebounder, a good defender, and gets his points the same way that Tyson Chandler does. Which is to say that he doesn't need plays run for him. And that makes him a great teammate for Carmelo Anthony. (Of course, there is the Page Six issue that Anthony's wife is supposedly friends with Kim Kardashian, but we digress.) If it happened, I would be very happy.
As for other issues, the Knicks have a bunch of free agents to deal with themselves. The list includes Jeremy Lin, Landry Fields, J.R. Smith, Steve Novak and Baron Davis. My preference would be to get Smith and Novak back, and then spend time trying to sign a reliable point guard for the mid-level exception (Steve Nash, anyone?).
If none of this comes to pass, my contingency plan is to move Stoudemire to the bench, and turn him into the frontcourt version of J.R. Smith.
In the mean time, hopefully game 3 goes New York's way.
