Kicks : Nike Air Max Fly By – Amar’e Stoudemire Away PE

The New York Knicks have gone from cellar dwellers to serious contenders and with their latest trade seem poised to challenge the East’s elite for the conference championship.  But before Carmelo and Mr. Big Shot joined the new look Knicks, it was Amare Stoudemire who made basketball at Madison Square Garden relevant for the first time since the Van Gundy era.  The Mecca of Basketball is once again among the hottest tickets in sports, as are the Knicks’ road games where you might get a glimpse of Stoudemire’s Nike Air Max Fly By away PE.  These joints use black in place of the home pair’s white sections to provide the visitor aesthetic and remind us that similarly colored Air Jordan Melo PEs can’t be too far off.  Click through to see more of Amare’s latest AM Fly By and stick with Sneaker News for the latest Nike Basketball player exclusives.

Sports : NBA - Finally It’s Done: Carmelo is a Knick

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Remember last week when Carmelo Anthony was extremely close to becoming a Net, so much so that people like me were writing about the ramifications of the trade. So much for that… Now we have Carmelo heading to the Knicks, where he wanted to be all along, and the Knicks are giving up a hell of a lot to get him. Carmelo is headed to the Knicks with Chauncey Billups, Sheldon Williams, Anthony Carter, and Renaldo Balkman. Denver receives Danilo Gallinari, Timofy Mosgov, Raymond Felton, Wilson Chandler, New York’s first round pick in 2014, and two second-round picks from Golden State (from the David Lee trade). Minnesota chips in by receiving Anthony Randolph and Eddy Curry. The T-Wolves will send Corey Brewer to the Nuggets.
With the Knicks, it all starts at the top. This deal was run by Jim Dolan, who went over Donnie Walsh’s head to get it done. Walsh had turned the Knicks into a respectable franchise after Isiah Thomas burned it to the ground. Walsh and coach Mike D‘Antoni were not in favor of this trade. Dolan didn’t care and was rumored to have taken the advice of Thomas to get the trade done. Dolan traded away most of his talent, along with his soul and 500 tickets to watch his band play in concert next time they’re in the Denver area.

Carmelo will likely be good for the Knicks, but the initial appearance here is they gave up a lot. Chandler’s a solid player who regressed in the last month as all the trade rumors surfaced. He’s the player I care most about giving up because I think he still has a lot of potential. He may never be the scorer Carmelo Anthony is, but he’s a better defender, a better rebounder, and he is perfectly suited to be a team’s third or fourth option. If the Knicks added a better guard (either an upgrade on Felton or a scoring shooting guard) and a center, there’s a chance they could’ve been better off with Chandler.

Felton going to Denver leaves me with mixed emotions because he was thriving as the team’s point guard, but his future was uncertain. He likely was only around until the summer of 2012, when the Knicks throw big free agent dollars at either Chris Paul or Deron Williams. In the next two years, however, he gives the team a better chance to win than Billups does. Billups isn’t suited for D’Antoni’s up-tempo offense and the loss of Gallinari and Chandler won’t help that either. I don’t think Gallinari’s ceiling is as high as Chandler's. He can’t play defense and isn’t as good of a shooter as he was supposed to be.

Denver seemed to have fully taken advantage of this situation and I think they make off much better than if they had Favors and four first round picks. Once they realized Dolan was involved, they milked the Knicks for everything they could get. Knowing Anthony was a goner in the offseason anyway, they’ve now got at least three pieces to help them stay competitive in the Western Conference in the coming years as they add players with their now open cap space. We still have to see whether or not the rumors are true of them flipping two of the acquired players to New Jersey for future first round picks.

As a Knicks fan, I’m now left with three emotions: skepticism, curiosity, and excitement. It’ll be fun to have Carmelo and Amar'e playing together in the Garden, but I’m skeptical about the long-term future of this team. Anything that has Dolan and Isiah’s fingerprints all over it doesn’t make Knicks fans feel good. Finally, I’m curious to see what other pieces they add now that they’ve lost a lot of depth.

Knicks fans will be left to make an interesting decision with their franchise after this deal. We all hate what Thomas did; we all respect what Walsh did to clean up his mess, and we all are worried when Dolan gets involved. Despite all this, we’re excited to have Carmelo around.

It should make for an interesting few years at Madison Square Garden.

Sports : Heat's Wade plans to wear tinted glasses at Knicks

NEW YORK — Miami Heat guard Dwyane Wade plans to wear tinted glasses for the start of Thursday's game against the New York Knicks to protect his eyes from the bright lights as he recovers from a migraine headache.

"I'll feel the game out, see how I feel," he said after Thursday morning's shootaround. "At times throughout the game, of course, I'll take them off, and if I feel like my eyes are adjusting well, my eyes are doing well, I may go without them. But I'm going to start the game (wearing them) for sure."

Wade missed Miami's last game Saturday against Toronto because of a migraine, a problem that has plagued him for years. Bright light is one of the triggers for the headaches.

"I just want to take no chances right now," Wade said. "I want to play."

Wade said he felt better after Wednesday's practice, but when he got off the plane in New York, he experienced blurred vision again and had to take more medication. He apologized to a reporter Thursday for not making eye contact while answering a question because he didn't want to look toward a light.

Wade has practiced with the glasses for several days, experimenting with different tints to find the one that's most comfortable. His peripheral vision will still be compromised some. Coach Erik Spoelstra said the glasses had been approved by the NBA.

The Heat were without forward Chris Bosh for Thursday's game because of a sprained left ankle. Wade was back to give Miami a Big Two with LeBron James after both he and Bosh sat out Saturday.

He still had one major uncertainty heading into his first game with the glasses.

"I don't really know how I look in them yet — I haven't even looked in the mirror," Wade joked. "I've got to make sure I look good in them, too."

LeBron James, whom the Knicks couldn't lure, now a Garden nemesis like Michael Jordan, Reggie Miller

Knicks fans try their best to distract LeBron James at the free throw line on Friday, but the Heat's star outshines Amar'e Stoudemire and reminds New York what it missed out on last summer.

LeBron James, jilter and betrayer of all that is New York basketball, was supposed to be rattled by the jeers, overwhelmed by the moment. He would read the angry banners and dissolve into a puddle of turnovers. Amar'e Stoudemire would teach him a lesson or two about pioneering and commitment.

Payback would be a glitch in LeBron's South Beach career.

Except that didn't happen during a one-sided Knick loss, 113-91. Instead, James hit for his 30th triple-double and officially became one of those piercing thorns in the side at the Garden, a visiting tormentor on the scale of Reggie Miller or Michael Jordan.

It may be difficult to stomach such a plot twist, but there you go. The Heat, behind James' all-round brilliance, pulled rapidly away in the second half to extend a winning streak to 11 games and reestablish the Eastern Conference pecking order, which happens to be the wrong order.

Nobody ever said the guy stinks. LeBron was a blurry, undefendable burst of energy at the Garden, plus-31 on the night on 14-of-23 shooting. He spotted seams and vectors on the court invisible to more conventional talents. There was nothing LeBron couldn't, or didn't, do on the way to 32 points, 11 rebounds and 10 assists. By comparison, Stoudemire was 11-for-28 from the field, 2-of-7 from the foul line, with four turnovers against a team that packed the paint and cut off the pick-and-rolls.

"He was moving the ball, shooting the ball so well you didn't even think about the other stats," Chris Bosh said, about James. "He was controlling pace of the game, kicking it to the open guy, being the playmaker that he is."

James spun for 360-degree layups, he hit three three-pointers and threaded the needle with a behind-the-back assist. It was all very exhilarating, and of course also depressing to think this show won't be performed here 41 times per season.

"We had to play a 48-minute game to get the win," James said. "As a team, we try to wear teams down, use our athleticism. That's what we did."

LeBron wins this one, no argument. He silenced the place, made the Knicks understand what they are missing and just how far they are from Miami.

It's not that the Garden crowd didn't try. James was jeered coming out of the tunnel for warmups. He was jeered louder during pregame introductions, and then he was jeered some more whenever he touched the ball. There were posters and chants in abundance, none of them particularly amiable.

James handled this contempt as he does everything else, with a distant smile and practiced indifference. Then he buried an opening three-pointer and began the process of shutting up everybody on Eighth Ave. and beyond.

He's only 25, yet James has heard it all by now.

"Can't get no worse than December 2nd when we went to Cleveland," James said, before the Heat faced the Knicks in a jazzed-up, overheated Garden. "Boos are OK, I understand. I know how to adjust to it. If you're not on their team, you suck."

James had in the past couple of years spoken vaguely about making the Garden his home. He still can't refer to the place without using the word, "Mecca."

Then the moment arrived last summer to put his ink where his mouth was, and James nested with his buddies in Miami. James still says the Knicks did nothing wrong during their courtship. He bristled a bit Friday when asked whether he shied away from New York because of its inherent pressures.

"It's not a spotlight I can't handle," James said.

He had a taste of that glaring attention during the Heat's two-day stay here in the city, as his every move was chronicled by gossip columnists and sportswriters. Even before entering the Garden, James made nice via Twitter. "NYC! One of the best cities in the world. Gotta love it," he Tweeted. He was taken aback, in a good way, by the sight of a giant LeBron billboard for Nike outside the building.

"Just rode pass (sic) 7th and 34th Street on our way to shoot-around and saw this above the Foot Action. Nice!!"

No native New Yorker describes a city address by giving the avenue number before the street number, an indication James doesn't know what he's talking about.

Small victory. The only one to be had at the Garden.

credit : NYDAILYNEWS