Isn’t he above? They played on three championship winning teams together and he was the Finals MVP all three times, all with dominant performances. If one was a Kobe fan or a neutral one, one can point to Kobe much younger at the time, I suppose. Kobe’s won two in his own right but was much less impressive in doing so. Shaq has more Finals MVP and great career numbers to boot.

With Rubio, I’m pretty confident he’s going to be a good and very fun to watch point guard. He’s shown he can pass incredibly well at very high levels of basketball. That level of excellence is going to transfer. In regard to his scoring, I think he’s going to be strictly a spotup shooter for his entire career. He’s not athletic enough nor has an innate scorer’s sense to finish around the basket and his set shot isn’t conducive in the mid-range. But his shot isn’t broken. His form is good and he’s a good free throw shooter. In time, he should be a serviceable, perhaps above average 3-point shooter.

He’s about the closest thing to Kidd I’ve seen. The Nash and Maravich comparisons are ridiculous, the former because he can’t shoot and the latter because I think it was more because they look alike. Well, I guess they both have flair. Basically, both Rubio and Kidd are about the same size, great passers, have extremely quick hands, possess great anticipation on defense, neither can score a lick from within the three point line but are decent spot up shooters, well Rubio could be anyway. Rubio doesn’t possess Kidd’s defensive versatility, so all things being equal, he’s not going to be as valuable but I think he’s a better passer in the halfcourt.

Re: the CP3 issue — right now the Hornets are still owned by the NBA. Would it even be conceivable for the Hornets to trade CP3 for anything less than a MeloDrama-like ransom when the team is owned by the league? Can you imagine the conspiracy theories if CP3 is actually traded to the Knicks?

Unless CP3 straight out says he wants either FA or the Knicks, there’s no way there is a trade in-season to us. So we better hope that CP3 is willing to take a haircut in terms of salary to make his wedding toast come true.

I am still hoping that Chris Singleton is the guy. The DX video on him by Sebastian Pruiti was not particularly flattering, but across the board scouts are lauding his defensive abilities. At 6’9″ 230 he could be our Shawn Marion. Unless one of the true inside players falls to us (ie. one of the euro centers, Markieff Morris, Biyombo) I personally would target Singleton. I’m sure Donnie is reading this intently. The only reason I’d go for someone Selby is if Billups/Melo strongly advocate him (they’ve seen him play in person and presumably know him well) or if the FO really thinks he is currently really undervalued.

The guy that is interesting is Marshon Brooks. His offensive #s are really impressive with an eFG of 54%, TS 58% even though he was basically the only guy who could score on his team. I know we’ve got volume scoring pretty well covered, but his athleticism is pretty apparent on video. Plus he has that huge wingspan. Reb+Stl+blocks of ~10 is pretty impressive for a 2 guard. If he shows that he has range out to 3 point land I wouldn’t be at all upset with picking him.

My rankings on Knicks beat-writers:
1) Hahn
2) close second – Howard Beck – only reason he’s 2nd is because he doesn’t seem to have the sources that Hahn has (or NYT’s editorial standards are higher when it comes to printing rumors)
3) Chris Sheridan – he’s not bad even though he seems to be wrong a lot
4) Berman
Distant DISTANT #5) Isola

Meanwhile who in the world would give up the HC job of the New York Knicks to go to Toronto? Toronto’s a great city but players don’t want to be there, the weather sucks even worse than NY, and the taxes are higher. It’s like Tom Coughlin deciding he would rather resign the NY Giants job for the Jacksonville job. Or Joe Girardi leaving the Yankees to take the Pirates job. It’s just ridiculous. It’d be one thing if he was going from the Knicks to Oklahoma City, where the players are better. But Toronto is terrible.

http://www.nypost.com/p/sports/knicks/raptors_won_go_after_antoni_9yXEhaeBO4mwRBFcYjEwEM?CMP=OTC-rss&FEEDNAME=

It’s weird to think that Minny would be more willing to trade Flynn after a good rookie year, and an injury-filled 2nd year, than trade Rubio, who hasn’t proven anything at the NBA level and has seemed to regress during the last two years, but I guess if you’re talking about ceilings, Rubio’s is higher.

BigBlueAL:
Also Yahoo reporting Rubio has reached an agreement to join the Wolves next season but no official announcement expected til Rubio’s season is done (they are in the Euro playoffs now apparently).

So that means Ridnour, Telfair and / or Flynn would in theory be up for grabs. I know Ridnour is the safe bet, but I still feel like Jonny Flynn could be a good point guard in this league. Kid’s still only 21 years old and spent most of last season recovering from a pretty nasty hip injury. 16.8 and 5.5 assists per 36 with 36% 3P% as a 19/20 year old rookie isn’t bad, even if it was on a putrid team.

Obviously the $3.4 million owed this year is an issue. But if we package Balkman with Turiaf (if and when he picks up his option), that would leave us an extra $2.5 million to play with. At that point I feel you’d be safe in drafting Faried or even a Justin Harper to make up for the front court void, and stashing Jerome Jordan at the end of the bench and hoping he can develop playing around elite talent.