It was good to see, though hardly surprising, that my pal Chris Sheridan at ESPN.com was thinking the same way I was yesterday at Mike D'Antoni's ballroom gala at the WaMu Theater. Chris and I toiled together on many an NBA assignment when we were both employed by The Associated Press. We still share a similar world view, especially when it comes to the world as it exists between Seventh and Eighth Avenues and 31st and 33rd Streets.
Not that we weren't impressed with everything D'Antoni had to say on his first official day as coach of the Knicks. But both of us shared a trait with D'Antoni and Donnie Walsh: We were distracted by visions of LeBron dancing in our heads.
For the Knicks to have any shot at making a legitimate run at LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, or Chris Bosh when all three become unrestricted free agents in the summer of 2010, Walsh and D'Antoni will have to follow a barebones plan of fiscal responsibility for the next two years. This would be a dramatic departure from the reckless spending that began 12 years ago -- the last time the Knicks had enough cap space to pursue unrestricted free agents and spent it on Allan Houston and Chris Childs.
Sheridan painted a slightly more dire cap situation facing Walsh in his column than I did, pointing out that if you include money to be paid first-round picks in the next two drafts and extensions for players D'Antoni might want to keep (Nate Robinson and David Lee), the Knicks could have as much as $67 million committed to the 2010-11 cap. That means Walsh would have to shave about $24 million to have enough to offer LeBron a max deal.
Simply put, that means Zach Randolph, Eddy Curry, or both will have to go. The only way to make it work would be to trade one or both of them for contracts that expire after the 2009-10 season. Difficult, but not impossible. Given the predicament, though, the Knicks could do worse in their search for a general manager than Denver's Mark Warkentien, who has displayed a knack for unloading supposedly untradeable players.
As an assistant coach with Team USA, D'Antoni will have daily access to LeBron this summer during the run-up to the Olympics and in Beijing during the Games. Asked yesterday about LeBron, D'Antoni said, "LeBron is amazing. He's an amazing athlete." Asked what he's learned about him by coaching him, D'Antoni said, "I learned that he wants to learn to speak Mandarin and conquer the world of Chinese business. Like with Kobe, I learned how focused he can get, and I learned that he wants to be the best player, just like Kobe."
But it doesn't sound as though D'Antoni is willing or able to pay the price of enduring two hideous seasons just for an outside shot at signing LeBron in 2010.
"Are you saying I'm going to be here for two years without winning?" D'Antoni said. "I'd have arrows all over me. I don't know if I can survive that. So my focus is to win this coming year, knowing Donnie is going to work behind the scenes and do what he can do to make this team as good as he can."
It's true that under the CBA, LeBron could re-sign with Cleveland for more money than the Knicks could offer. But that logic misses the point that LeBron could earn literally hundreds of millions in endorsement money by playing the rest of his career in New York.
Also, if anyone doubts that LeBron doesn't embrace the notion of playing for the Knicks, I refer you to his comments the last time he played here back in December.
"It's the mecca of basketball," James said. "When you come to MSG, it should be special every time you come here. No matter how old it gets, no matter how many years you've got playing in the league, you dream of playing in Madison Square Garden.
"It's fun for me," he said. "You see all the celebrities, you see all the lights, you see all the jerseys. You grew up watching playoff series, the Bulls and the Knicks. It's something that you dream about."
According to a story in the Cleveland Plain Dealer last month, some New Yorkers have taken the LeBron-to-the-Knicks situation a little too seriously. Two Web sites have been launched -- www.nycforlebron.com and www.nycforlebron.net -- promising to lavish LeBron with gifts if he signs with the Knicks. According to the story, the NBA is monitoring the situation closely, as such outside compensation would not only be a moot point to someone who is on his way to being a billionaire, but it would probably violate the NBA's collective bargaining agreement.