Daily Rant: 2/22/11

It's done! 3 teams, 12 players, and some drafts picks and Carmelo Anthony is back home, traded to the NY Knicks. Wasn't that the plan the whole time? A lot of Knicks' fans have been uneasy about the players that the Knicks gave up for the All-Star. As this season played out, the players who were involved in the trade from NY were having a good season, they are young, meshed well and the Knicks had finally moved past mediocrity and were showing some serious life. But did fans believe that without another superstar (along with Amare Stoudemire) the Knicks would really compete with the other Eastern power houses? This deal had to be done and the Knicks and the fans have to forget about the first half of this season. The future is now and with this trade, two big time, young NBA players are teaming up in NY to hopefully bring back the winning. This will also seriously impact the next couple of seasons of free agency. Who wouldn't want to play on a team with Anthony and Stoudemire, in NYC?? It's clear that the NBA has changed, no more do players want the competition amongst each other, they would rather join forces and create All-Star teams to dominate the rest. It happened in Boston, it happened in Miami, in LA and now it's begun in NYC. Unfortunately for the smaller market teams, this will seriously impact them as well, but not in the positive sense, which will only leave more for the owners to work out when they meet to discuss the new collective bargaining agreements. No matter what, this will be marked as the season of change for the Knicks. Not since Patrick Ewing, have the Knicks had a starter on the All-Star team, they did with Stoudemire. Now, instead of the pressure being on his shoulders, he will have a bonafide co-star in Carmelo and things can shape up to be one heck of a ride at MSG.