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It wouldn’t be right to ignore the basketball season altogether, right?  Even if basketball was never my game.   As the would-be art aficionados like to say, “I know what I like”.  And what I like is usually a nice combination of talent, effort and brains.

Amare Stoudemire is ok, he’s got everything but brains.  And Carmelo Anthony’s got talent and brains but so far hasn’t shown that complete effort I’d ordinarily like to see.  That he did show some effort against the Bucks in that first game with the Knicks was absolutely heartening.

I hated the Anthony deal.   I liked Gallinari and Felton especially, and Chandler seemed to be getting better and better.  Mozgov was an unknown, but only because the NBA refs don’t give rookies any break at all before the All-Star Break.

All I hear is that the Knicks were only 28-26 and none of those traded guys made any difference.  I disagree.  A 28-26 record with a very young team is a hell of a lot better than the same record with an older team.  And all those young kids were fun to watch…..so much energy, even if some of it may have been misdirected.

Did I like Gallinari just because he’s Italian?  Yes.  Now he’s in Denver and he won’t get many touches there.  My guess is he’ll be off to Italy as soon as he can get there.

The other main theme of the Knicks trade was that the Knicks now own two elite players and are in a position to get a third, a combination guaranteed to bring a title to New York, as soon as 2012.  And, while that’s true, they won’t be getting Deron Williams any time soon. 

And, besides, they don’t really need a point guard.  Chris Paul may be a slight upgrade over Chauncey Billups but he won’t be noticed as much as a big center..  I thought I’d heard that Dwight Howard might be available next year.  Now that would be a nice addition.

I loved the Nets trade for Deron Williams.  Not only is Williams a great point guard, ranked with Chris Paul as 1 and 2 or even 1 and 1A, but that the deal came as a complete surprise to the entire league was especially satisfying.  It showed the enterprising spirit of that down-on-their-luck team, and especially Billy King and owner Prokhorov.

So now the Nets can hope to see some more free agents give serious consideration to Nets offers in the future.  For the Nets, it doesn’t even matter what they had to give up.  They badly needed credibility, something that’s been missing in Jersey since Jason Kidd was traded.

I should mention here that I had been a Nets fan through all the Kidd years and was a half season ticket holder for them back in those wonder years when the Nets shocked the whole NBA before losing to Shaq and the Lakers in the finals, Shaq of the offensive foul never called, Shaq of the elbow to the face never seen.  Not that I’m bitter.

Ever since the Kidd days though, I’ve been a Knicks fan.  Even in the Isiah years, they were obviously striving to get better, no matter that most of Isiah’s moves were totally inexplicable and just made the team worse. 

My Knicks loyalty got stronger in a hurry when Dolan finally brought in some real basketball minds, in the personages of Donnie Walsh and Mike D’Antoni.  Do I like D’Antoni just because he’s Italian?  Absolutely.

But while owners Dolan and Prokhorov seem to be getting most of the credit for these incredible player acquisitions, it was really the positioning that each team enjoyed, brought about by their respective GM’s, Billy King and Donnie Walsh, and, in the Nets case, Kiki Vandeweghe and Rod Thorn before that.

I still think the Knicks gave up too much for Anthony.  It seemed as if their only competition for him were the Chicago Bulls and the Nets.  Anthony would never have signed with the Nets and Chicago’s offer wasn’t really that close.  As for him re-signing with Denver, I suppose that was possible but unlikely.  And I would have loved to have seen the great Melo caught between the proverbial rock and a hard place.

But the Knicks had all the credibility in the world, even without Anthony, what with the Garden and the heritage and a good talented nucleus.  Now the nucleus is gone except for Landry Fields, who I fear has moved a little closer to oblivion now that the big Three will be monopolizing the ball.

 And that fast-paced exciting brand of play will be slowed down considerably with Billups running things, at least in the long run.  It’ll be post-up, post-up one-on-one stuff now.  I suppose D’Antoni can continue to hope for it but he won’t likely be seeing the defense he’d seen coming up to the trade.

For now though, I’m going to make the best of it.  So the Knicks won’t be that exciting anymore.  They won’t exude a whole bunch of energy.  But they will be pretty good.  Look for a lot of high-scoring games, something that had always been a D’Antoni trademark but that will be even more pronounced in the future, if D’Antoni is still the coach in the future.

That there should be any doubt about this management team’s future Is perhaps the saddest thing of all.  It demonstrates that Dolan is still a bad owner who runs things his way, even if it’s the stupid way, the thoughtless way, the arrogant way.  That it was necessary to deny the allegations that Isiah was coming back just demonstrated once again how out of touch the man is with the media (and reality).

In fact, I like to think of him as the Herman Edwards of basketball owners.  It must be nice to own a cable company.  It requires little intelligence though, at least less so than is needed to own a pro basketball team.