FanHouse Donnie Walsh

With the Cavaliers in town to play the Knicks, speculation about LeBron James leaving Cleveland for the Big Apple has been shifted into overdrive. But Donnie Walsh wants you to know that he cares about the Knicks' present just as much as the future.

"No matter what you say, there's a feeling that you're just looking to next summer, and that hasn't been true at all," he told the Cleveland Plain Dealer. "I know where it's coming from, but there's very little you can do about it. I'm talking to you now and saying I'm not even thinking about that right now. I don't care if I say that to 100 people, they'll say, 'He's waiting for next year.' "

Instead of telling that to 100 people, perhaps he could merely reinforce that message to the 14 in the Knicks' locker room -- because according to some close to the team, even the players are starting to think that this season doesn't matter.

Man, Eddy Curry spends his entire summer working the Stairmaster and eating like a vegan caveman and he still can't get fit enough for his Knickerbocker bosses. Curry tweaked his calf within the first days of training camp, and that (plus ongoing fitness issues) had Knicks prez Donnie Walsh telling reporters things like "When he can get out here and do it without pulling something, we'll bring him back."

Walsh is rarely this direct; you'd never see the Knicks discuss Danilo Gallinari's back injury (which plagued the 2008-09 season) in this fashion. But Curry's reported lack of effort in the gym prior to this summer hasn't earned the big fellow the right of indignation, I suppose.

In the foreseeable absence of Curry, the Knicks will roll with various levels of David Lee, Darko Milicic and rookie Jordan Hill at center.

FanHouse previews all 30 NBA teams in advance of the 2009-10 season.

The Knicks have slowly climbed their way out of salary cap hell -- but all that got them is a season in NBA purgatory.

Instead of making moves toward actual improvement, the Knicks are blatantly looking past this season to next summer when they hope to strike it rich with the famed free agent class of 2010. But while Donnie Walsh's long-term strategy may eventually pay dividends, it offers little hope in the interim that the Knicks might rise above last year's fifth-place finish in the Atlantic.

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Stephon Marbury is one of those weird characters who has just the right mix of "crazy" and "keepin' it real" where you can't ever be sure whether to trust or distrust him. Personally, I think he's a bad apple who keeps getting too many chances, but some people feel differently.

After Marbury recently did a Knickerbocker-beat-down of an interview with the New York Post, I would imagine no one who plays professional basketball in the Big Apple is much of a fan either. Marbury's quotes are full of disparaging remarks, as he essentially urged any free agents to avoid Donnie Walsh and Mike D'Antoni like the plague.

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Matt Moore set the table on Jason Kidd's impending free agency -- Dallas, New York, Cleveland and Portland figure to be the best options. Though Kidd has publicly said he'd give the Mavericks dibs, you'll be interested to know Kidd will spend Wednesday, the first day of the free agency period, in New York City chatting with the Knicks.

Frank Isola of the New York Daily News reports that Kidd will meet with Knicks president Donnie Walsh early Wednesday, hoping to get a commitment. NY cannot offer more than the mid-level exception (a starting salary of less than $6 million) unless Walsh works out a sign-and-trade with Dallas, which holds Kidd's Bird rights. But the Knicks certainly have a hole at the point. Chris Duhon, ahem, ain't getting it done.

This is the time of the year when NBA executives earn their salaries, making the decisions that often determine the success or failure the following season.

They make the trades, draft the players, and sign the free agents that set the stage. They can make or break a season long before it actually begins. The winning and losing generates the enthusiasm or leads to the apathy that surrounds your favorite team, but it's the executive decisions now that can give you a glimpse into the future.

The general managers usually sleep well during a season while the coaches fret every minute. In the summer, the GMs don't sleep at all, and with good reason today. When the economy is booming, NBA owners can be a little forgiving when things don't go their way. In an era of economic hard times, dwindling ticket sales and shrinking salary caps, there is no room or patience for mistakes. Here are five GMs on the hot seat in a very hot summer.

As teams get eliminated from the 2009 NBA playoff picture, Fork 'Em figures out what went wrong.

There's been a movement of late, first spewed by David Friedman of Pro Basketball News and later parroted by Marc Berman of the New York Post, to assert Mike D'Antoni hasn't actually helped the Knicks improve at all. This, frankly, is contrarian garbage. The Knicks didn't end up in the playoffs, but the franchise has clearly seen a new dawn.

Stephon Marbury's arbitration hearing with the Knicks regarding the team's $400,000 fine for his alleged refusal to suit up earlier this year is set for Tuesday, but Marc Berman of the New York Post reports that Marbury will meet face to face with Donnie Walsh (hopefully on a bench with a camera rolling) one last time before the hearing in hopes of finally reaching a resolution -- and perhaps even a buyout.

Why should we believe that Marbury and Walsh might finally reach an accord? Because for the first time all year, there's a legitimate deadline in place: if Marbury isn't placed on waivers by this coming Sunday, he won't be eligible to appear on the postseason roster of any other team.

As Tom Ziller pointed out over the weekend, rumblings of a three-way deal between the Knicks, Blazers and Clippers surfaced a few days ago. Exact details of the alleged trade were never clear, but it seemed to hinge on David Lee (and potentially Eddy Curry) heading to Portland, Marcus Camby returning to New York and, well, someone going to the Clippers.

Now that a couple of days have passed without movement, the trade appears to be dead in the water -- and if you believe the parties involved, it may not have ever been alive in the first place.

Cuttino Mobley officially announced his retirement at a press conference today due to hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, a medical condition that results in an enlarged heart. He's known about the condition for a while (he signed a waiver releasing the Clippers of liability earlier this season) but it's become more and more serious and the Knicks were unable to find a specialist willing to clear him for action.

In hindsight, the trade is bittersweet. Not only was he playing for the Clippers before the trade, he was playing well, and he was likely in line to start for the Knicks. But as Newsday's Alan Hahn points out, had Mobley not been traded, he might not have realized just how far his condition had progressed until too late.

Conceivably, the trade could have saved him.

"I hope it did," team president Donnie Walsh said. "I really do. None of this is as important as somebody's life. None of it. Period. So I'm glad that we had a doctor that put him through tests to show that the risk is there."

How does Mobley's retirement affect the Knicks' bottomline? Because he's retiring for medical reasons, Mobley will get all of guaranteed money -- he's making $9.1 million this year and $9.8 million next.

In theory the Knicks could be granted a medical exception worth 50% of Mobley's salary to sign a replacement this year, and they might be eligible to remove Mobley's salary from the salary cap once he's sidelined for 12 months. Whether that actually happens, though, remains to be seen -- because they completed the trade after they learned he might not be able to play, it's up for debate whether the Knicks are even eligible for such relief.