Acta Diurna

After four very disappointing seasons in the NBA, the New York Knicks expect to revive their glorious history under the command of their new coach, Mike D’Antoni. Phoenix’s former trainer will be busy setting up his team to get ready for the beginning of the next season. To establish his up-tempo type of game, Coach D’Antoni will have to totally rebuild his roster.

The deemed tactician has already announced that he wished two of his former players to join him: the French “Swiss army knife” Boris Diaw and the Brazilian “particle accelerator” Leandro Barbosa. Their arrival could involve a trade including Knicks’ point guard Stephon Marbury and his 22-million-dollar contract. It’s well known that “Starbury” and D’Antoni aren’t on good terms.

In the current roster, the 2005 Coach of the Year seems very excited to have Jamal Crawford and Nate Robinson in his team. However, he isn’t quite enthusiastic about the three big men: David Lee, Eddy Curry and Zach Randolph. These forwards are too slow for D’Antoni’s style of basketball even if he doesn’t despair of converting them to his philosophy.

"That's who we have right now and that's who I'm going to make the best of it with", he declared during his first press conference in Big Apple. "Anybody can run. Anybody can up and down the floor. We can find a happy medium where we can maximize what they can do."

To complete his roster, D’Antoni counts on a top8 position in Tuesday NBA draft lottery.  It could enable the franchise to pick Memphis’ gifted point guard Derrick Rose or Arizona’s 19-year-old shooting guard Jerryd Bayless.

For once, next season in the Madison Square Garden could look bright and peaceful.