Did you hear? Carmelo Anthony is going to New York. Carmelo Anthony is going to New York! New York, I say. He's going to be a member of the New York Knicks.
Yay! We have ourselves another superteam! Move over you Boston Celtics. Take a seat you Los Angeles Lakers. Those Miami Heat are are just so 2010, folks. The Knicks -- yes the same Knicks who haven't won anything since 1973 -- are the next great thing. To ESPN, perhaps.
Maybe LeBron James should have taken his services to the Big Apple instead of South Beach.
For those of you who were out of touch for the last few hours (or in my case -- asleep), New York reportedly completed the trade with the Denver Nuggets for Anthony. They shipped Danilo Gallinari, Raymond Felton, Wilson Chandler, Timofey Mozgov, a first round pick and two second round picks to Denver for Anthony, Chauncey Billups, Renaldo Balkman, Anthony Carter - and the real linchpin of the trade - former Atlanta Hawks draft bust Shelden Williams.
But New York's basketball team was not done giving up everything and the kitchen sink so that pesky Russian billionaire owner (Mikhail Prokhorov) of the New Jersey Nets didn't get Melo. The Knicks also received Al Horford's former Florida teammate Corey Brewer for Anthony Randolph and Eddy Curry's (finally) expiring contract and $3 million to the Minnesota Timberwolves. Or at least we think Brewers' headed to New York and that $3 million is going to Minnesota and not Denver. Reports are still kind of sketchy at the moment.
So where does this leave New York's basketball team and what does it mean for the Hawks?
Well, New York has two guys named Williams on the team, including Shawne Williams -- the dude who fought Hawks forward Marvin Williams. And they kept rookie Landry Fields. But then again if you believe the Internet buzz, they added Isiah Thomas back into the fold and will likely lose long-time Knicks exec Donnie Walsh -- who wanted to stop the ridiculous bidding war. If you don't think this is subtraction by addition, you obviously don't remember Thomas' first go-round in New York.
Granted the Knicks got another hometown kid with star power in Anthony. That worked real well the last time they tried it. (Four words Knicks fans: Isiah Thomas, Stephon Marbury). The Knicks also received a very good, yet aging point guard in Billups, a swingman in Brewer (we think) and a bunch of third stringers.
Are the Knicks a better team now? Let's see they lost their starting center (Mozgov), their starting small forward (Gallinari), their backup small forward (Chandler), their starting point guard (Felton), their backup power forward (Randolph) and got rid of a terrible Thomas mistake (Curry).
Let's just say that Anthony, Billups, Fields and Amare Stoudemire better get ready to play 40 minutes a game. And say hello to center Ronny Turiaf and his backup -- center Ronny Turiaf. (In reality, the Knicks will have to go even smaller when the 6-foot-10 Turiaf is out of the game or make another trade for a center).
If I were a Hawks fan, I wouldn't be too worried, just yet.
This trade was about accumulating the piece No. 2 of New York's eventual "Big Three."
Talk to me in 2012 when Deron Williams and Chris Paul are free agents and looking to take a bite out of the Big Apple. That is if the new CBA even lets them take their services to the "City that Never Sleeps." By then, the Knicks might resemble a balanced basketball team, not two great players, two good players and a bunch of spare parts.