Welcome to the inaugural edition of eDraft’s NBA Season Preview.  We start with the Atlantic Division, the toughest in the East, covering everyone from the pretenders to the contenders. We now turn to the Knicks, who possess two of the most gifted forwards in the game, but can New York translate this talent into playoff success?

NEW YORK KNICKS
Key additions: Raymond Felton (G), Jason Kidd (G), Marcus Camby (C), Ronnie Brewer (G), Pablo Prigioni (G)

I am, unfortunately, a life-long Knicks fan, and I can say with certainty that I have never experienced a more joyful period than those sweet weeks in the dead of last winter when Jeremy Lin lit up the Garden with his inspired theatrics. That said, Lin is not a high-quality starting point guard, and I would have been filled with dread had he been the team’s starter come opening day. Lin would have been an excellent backup (a much better choice than Kidd), and it would have been a good financial move for the Knicks to keep Lin (even as a backup) for the money Houston offered.  The truth is, Lin’s game has too many holes: a turnover rate of 5 per 36 minutes last season,  a relatively weak handle that got exposed against the swarming Heat, and his need to have the ball in his hands to be effective.

The Knicks are better with Raymond Felton as the starter. Felton was playing at an all-star level (17 PPG-9 APG, 3.6 RPG, 1.8 SPG)  before the Knicks traded him to Denver in the Carmelo Anthony deal two seasons ago and the Knicks hope that his disastrous season (11.4 PPG-6.5 APG-2.5 RPG-1.3 SPG)  in Portland last year was an aberration. The team is impressed by the weight he has shed this off-season and coach Woodson likes his focus.

And what will Felton be focusing on this year? Feeding the ball to Melo and then doing it some more. Melo is a singular talent, the best scorer in the East and one of the most gifted small forwards in the history of the league. Of course, Anthony is not without his warts: he holds the ball too long plugging up the offense, he got his coach fired last season, and Denver has been a better team since trading him. But he is a Knick now and they are his team- there is no longer any pretence about this being Amar'e Stoudemire’s club. It is clear that Stoudemire is not the player he was when he signed with the Knicks in the summer of 2010 and the decline has been dramatic. In the 2009-10 season with Phoenix, Stoudemire averaged 23 PPG-8.9 RPG-55 FG%, numbers which situated him among the elite power forwards in the game, but last season Stoudemire had a more pedestrian line of 17.5 PPG-7.8RPG-48 FG%. There has even been talk of Stoudemire moving to the bench in recognition of the fact the he and Anthony are an awkward fit .

The era of James Dolan has been a painful one for Knick fans, with bad contracts and an embarrassing public feud with former coach Mike D’Antoni, but the signing of the current reigning Defensive Player of the Year, Tyson Chandler last summer was a rare moment of lucidity for the Knicks front office. Chandler, along with rookie steals leader Iman Shumpert, transformed the Knicks defense from indifferent to formidable .

The problem for the Knicks is that there were no comparable moves made this off-season. In fact, the Knicks got a lot older this summer, they are the oldest team in the league, and it’s not clear how much better signing Kidd or Marcus Camby made them. The problem last year was rooted in Anthony and Stoudemire and their inability to play well together. That, and the fact that the enigmatic and inconsistent J.R. Smith was often the second scoring option on the floor for the Knicks. If the Knicks make it out of the second round, it will be a surprise, but it will mean they finally figured out how to make the pieces fit.

Reason for optimism: The Knicks declined to match Toronto’s offer for Landry Fields. Now I like a scrappy, smart player as much as the next guy but Fields is a very limited player who can thrive only when the stars align just so. Toronto just got a very good role player for a lot of money. 

Reasons for despair: Rookie surprise Iman Shumpert tore his ACL in last years’ playoffs and may never have the same athletic ability again, which may mean a short career as he has no jumper to speak of yet.

Projected record: 51-31