Stat and Melo: The Start of the a new Culture taking over the Garden

The Garden has sold out on most nights for longer than I can remember. But, I believe people go to the Garden not to see the Knicks, instead they came to see basketball at the Garden. Basketball at the Garden is one of the greatest spectacles ever. People who actually come to the Garden to see the Knicks didn't see a spectacle but most nights saw a debacle. After the atrocious teams assembled by the likes of Scott Layden and most notoriously, Isiah Thomas, this year's team created by Donnie Walsh is like a breath of fresh air. By breath of fresh air it was like you just came out of a small room where everyone was farting.

This is and always will be the Mecca of basketball. Some people say that it shouldn't be because the Knicks are hardly relevant in the NBA and even if they are the franchise only has two titles, both won when my mom was a toddler. The reason that this is the Mecca of basketball is because this city has basketball in its blood. There's as blacktops in this town as there are McDonalds. This is the home of the Big East Tournament, not to mention that almost everyone has allegiances to at least one Big East team if not all. This a place where St.John's beating top 20 teams on a regular basis means the Johnnies are back to normal. The NIT is played at the Garden every year. New York City is basketball.

Carmelo Anthony, whom some call the best scorer in the game today, is finally a Knick after months of waiting. He could possibly become the best scoring Knick since Bernard King. The trade was finalized today and his first game in Blue and Orange(professionally anyways) will be tomorrow against the Milwaukee Bucks. I didn't it would be done before the deadline. With the luck the Knicks(and other New York sports teams, i.e.Cliff Lee) of getting a big name star such as last summer with LeBron James, I didn't think we would have got him. After buzz about the Nets returning to the picture during NBA All Star Weekend with their trade package that was much better than the Knicks, I thought we wouldn't get him. On Monday, we did get him.

New York has two superstars in Amare Stoudemire and Melo, and if people can call Chris Bosh a superstar because he plays with Lebron James and Dwayne Wade, I will go as far as to call Chauncey Billups a superstar as well. They have a young star in Landry Fields who will continue to get better. The last time there was a young star put beside 3 great players he became an All Star himself. The person I'm talking about is Rajon Rondo of the Celtics. Being around high caliber players make those around them take their game to a higher level.I really like Fields and I am glad he was not included in the deal for Melo.

The sad part of these trades is that you part with some players you liked. Raymond Felton played at a much higher level than he had with the Charlotte Bobcats. For his first couple months as a Knick he played at an all star level but his game started to slip in January. Gallo has a very high ceiling and shows signs of a Dirk Nowitzki type player. The problem I had with him was his inconsistency. He was have good games and very few great games. It seemed as though if his three point range was off, it would throw off his entire game. Wilson Chandler is a great shooter and played like a poor man's Melo, so when you have the chance to get the real deal, he would be the first to go. Eddy Curry and Anthony Randolph who were traded to the Timberwolves never played so it isn't hard to miss them. The best memory of Timofey Mozgov was a funny "tell me how my balls smell" dunk by Blake Griffin over him, so he definitely won't be missed by me.

I don't think the Knicks will win this year but in a 7 game series anything can happen. The goal is to set up a team with player in their prime years to win sometime this decade and to continue contending during that time.

There have been rumblings that this pairing of stars might be bad for the league. I believe it's better to show that the Lakers, Celtics, and Heat won't monopolize the NBA Finals. More teams might start doing this.

At least for the next few seasons, the same hype that I have for the Yankees, Giants, and Jets, I can now have for the Knicks. We have to add a few more pieces to the team before we can think of playing in June but I do think we'll be playing in May, that's something I wasn't sure about before this season.