NEW YORK (NBA.com exclusive) —

“We want LeBron. Let’s go. We want LeBron,” he shouted.

After this latest performance by the Knicks, landing James via free agency this summer is about all their fans have to look forward to.

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NEW YORK — Bill Walker

In high school, he was Robin to O.J. Mayo’s Batman as the duo teamed up to win two state championships at North College Hill High School in Cincinnati.

During his tenure at Kansas State, he played alongside future NBA lottery pick Michael Beasley and under head coach Bob Huggins.

In his rookie season with the Celtics, the 6-foot-6, 198-pound Walker played in the large shadow of perennial All-Stars Kevin Garnett, Ray Allen and Paul Pierce.

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NEW YORK (NBA.com exclusive) —

Making his first start of the season there Wednesday night, McGrady had perhaps his most complete game since coming to New York at the trading deadline. McGrady put up 21 points, eight assists and seven rebounds as the Knicks snapped a six-game home losing streak by routing Detroit 128-104 at Madison Square Garden.

The Knicks (21-39) won for just the second time in 12 outings, while the Pistons (21-40) dropped their fifth straight.

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NEW YORK — Nate Robinson

The former Knick got Celtics coach Doc Rivers to incorporate two of his old New York plays  into the Celtics’ playbook and the results paid off. Robinson scored 20 points in Tuesday’s 105-100 win at Detroit.

“I heard he played well and it’s good for him. It’s a real good opportunity for him, so that’s good. I’m sure Doc’s got thousands of plays, but maybe [Robinson's] comfortable with that,” D’Antoni said before the Knicks faced Detroit Wednesday at MSG.

Rivers told Robinson he was fine with incorporating the plays as long as Nate taught his new teammates.

“He’s a good friend,” McGrady told the New York Post before the Cavs shelled the Knicks in Cleveland. “He wanted to see me back on the basketball court and congratulate me on being back. I sent him an email that said: ‘I’m in the Big Apple. I’ll see you here next season.’”‘

LeBron’s answer to T-Mac? ”LOL.”

McGrady has an expiring contract worth $23 million and has said he would consider playing for less if it would help the Knicks land a couple of max-contract free agents.

The question is, Will LeBron want to leave Cleveland?

“(He) could go either way,” McGrady told the Post. “On one hand, he could say I gave you all something you never had, what you wanted. On the other hand, I’ve been here seven years, I tried and it just didn’t happen. I want to start fresh. It could go either way. Nobody knows what the guy is thinking. Let’s just sit back and enjoy and wait till July 1st.”

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NEW YORK  — Zach Randolph

“He said he’s gonna come back here. This is where he started at,” Randolph said after dropping 31 points and 25 rebounds in a 120-109 victory over the Knicks, his former team, at Madison Square Garden.

The 6-foot-8 Gay reportedly rejected the Grizzlies’ five-year, $50 million offer last November because he wanted a five-year, $65 million extension.

“If it would’ve happened then, then it would be done, but now it’s all about my team and I’d be selfish if I’d be thinking about that the whole season and I’m not that type of player or person,” said Gay, who is averaging 20 points and 5.8 rebounds and had 27 and 5 in the win over the Knicks.

The Grizzlies can give Gay a $4.4 million qualifying offer this summer. He can be signed to an offer sheet by another team, but Memphis reserves the right to match the offer and keep him. He becomes an unrestricted free agent in 2011.

While the Knicks will target the big-name free agents LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh, Gay could be an attractive option this summer if none of those pan out.

“It’s definitely a historic, great place to play,” Gay said of the Garden. “But I’m wearing a Grizzlies jersey right now, so maybe this summer you could ask me that question and it will be a different answer. But right now it’s all about my team.”

Wherever he lands, the future is bright.

“The guy’s 6-8, athletic, can run, jump, shoot,” Randolph said.

“You see he took over tonight. The sky’s the limit. He’s a future All-Star.”

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NEW YORK -

“I don’t know, it’s a good chance he will. The city, playing in the Garden, it’s going to be interesting,” Randolph said Saturday night before his Memphis Grizzlies met the Knicks at MSG.

Randolph and Jamal Crawford were traded from the Knicks in November 2008 in the first wave of cap-clearing space.

The second wave took place before this year’s trading deadline when Knicks president Donnie Walsh dealt six players for another set of six, including seven-time All-Star Tracy McGrady, who has an expiring contract worth $23 million. The Knicks now have just four guaranteed contracts for next year.

Randolph is averaging 20.5 points and 11.7 rebounds with Memphis, where he is a team captain and one of the elder statesmen on the roster. He became an All-Star this year but said his experience in New York was “a great experience.”

“I got along with the guys real well. The coaches were great and the organization was good, so I don’t have no complaints,” Randolph said.

The Knicks were 6-3 last season before Randolph and Crawford were traded, and Randolph says a team with those two, David Lee and Chris Duhon would be “tough.”

“We were 6-3 before they split us up. I look at it from right there. We were clicking. Me, Jamal, David, Chris. That’s a good squad, especially for the Eastern Conference,” he said.

Randolph’s deal expires after the 2010-11 season and he joked that he could end up back with the Knicks in the summer of 2011.

“That’s a good point,” Randolph said. “Me and my agent talked about that.”

HOLLINS DEFENDS THABEET MOVE

Grizzlies coach Lionel Hollins said he hopes to see Hasheem Thabeet improve and get better after getting sent to the D-League.

“I’m not expecting numbers, I just want him to go get a chance to play,” Hollins said. “We just want to see him go get playing time.”

The Grizzlies on Thursday assigned the 7-foot-3 Thabeet to the Dakota Wizards, their D-League affiliate, making Thabeet the highest-drafted NBA player ever to join an NBA D-League roster. In 50 games for Memphis this season, he averaged 2.5 points, 2.9 rebounds and 10.3 minutes, finding little playing time behind Marc Gasol and Hamed Hadaddi at center.

Hollins said he didn’t think the move would hurt Thabeet’s confidence.

“I think it will help his confidence because he goes and gets a chance to play,” he said. “I would have less confidence sitting on the bench in a pro game than having the opportunity than going to the minor leagues and being able to play every game.”

Asked if it might become a trend to send top lottery picks to the D-League, Hollins didn’t rule it out.

“I think it should be. I think right now most teams don’t want to do it because we got criticized by the media. A high draft choice and this and that. It’s about development, it’s about growth, it’s about making your young people better and if sitting them on the bench and not playing them makes them better, then that’s what we would do. But if sending him down and letting him play gives him an opportunity to get better, then that’s the best move we should make regardless of what the PR criticism may be.”

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It’s David Lee.

Lee, a 6-foot-9 All-Star center, ran the Knicks’ offense down the stretch of their 118-116 overtime victory Friday night over the Washington Wizards.

After Nick Young tied the game at 116 with a 3-pointer in the OT, Lee scored the game-winning bucket on a drive past JaVale McGee with 1.6 seconds remaining, snapping an eight-game New York losing streak.

New York (20-37) outscored Washington 6-4 in the extra period.

“Mostly David Lee was running the show and doing delays,” Knicks coach Mike D’Antoni told reporters. “The offense kind of ran through David the last five or six minutes.”

Chris Duhon, who was the starting point guard for most of the season before being replaced by Sergio Rodriguez, did not play the entire game.

Al Harrington finished with 37 points, including 5 of 8 from beyond the arc, and 7 rebounds. Lee added 25 points, 16 boards and 5 assists and Tracy McGrady scored 23 points but left with two and a half minutes remaining in the third quarter because his surgically repaired left knee stiffened up.

McGrady was supposed to get back in with three or four minutes left in the game but “he stiffened up a little bit,” D’Antoni said.

“I think I came out with like two minutes in the third,” McGrady told reporters. “We got back-to-back [against Memphis Saturday at MSG] and I sat out too long and I stiffened up. He realized that…and the team was rolling. I was even going to tell him, ‘Just let those guys play because they’re playing so well.’”

Said D’Antoni: “He’ll get there. He’ll be closing a lot of games for us.”

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Tracy McGrady

This is an age in which salary figures and cap hits and expiring contracts are more important than talent for a number of players, when a seven-time All-Star is little more than a means to end. In McGrady’s case, the back-to-back scoring champ is being used to recruit another scoring champ.

The Knicks will cut T-Mac to lure LeBron James.

Read the full story by Art Garcia and myself here.

(Photo courtesy AP)

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NEW YORK (NBA.com exclusive) —

On a night when the Knicks honored their 1969-70 NBA championship club, the current team could not draw any inspiration.

Behind Andrew Bogut’s 24-point, 20-rebound performance, Milwaukee handed New York its seventh straight loss, 83-67, before 19,763 who came to see legendary Knicks Walt Frazier, Willis Reed and Bill Bradley honored at halftime.

“It does [sting more],” said Knicks guard Tracy McGrady, who scored 15 points on 5-for-14 shooting. “You got Willis Reed sitting right there in the front row and the performance that we gave out we definitely wanted to give a little bit more, but it happens.”

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(Photo courtesy AP)

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