J.R. Smith will play for the Knicks

A little while ago, the N.Y Knicks had plenty of query marks. Now it seems they’re building a juggernaut.

Shooting guard J.R. Smith has made a decision to join Carmelo Anthony, Amare Stoudemire and genius Jeremy Lin in N.Y.

Smith, who played last season with the Denver Nuggets, had listed the Knicks, Clippers, Lakers, Magic, Chicago Bulls and Pacers as groups he was in consideration of joining after a consignment in China that started during the NBA lockout. Sports Betting Online

Smith was unsuitable to revisit the NBA from China till his team’s season was finished there. The Knicks can’t reach a deal with him till his comeback is cleared by FIBA, basketball’s global governing body, but a resource with direct knowledge of the condition announces Smith has been cleared.

Agreement terms weren’t available, but the Knicks managed to offer Smith a pro-rated share of their $2.5 million mini mid-level exception and a player opportunity for a 2nd year. Basketball Betting

To clear a list spot for Smith, it seems the NY Knicks have released seldom-used forward Renaldo Balkman.

This was Balkman’s 2nd assignment with the Knicks. He was originally an initial-round pick of New York in 2006 and was traded to the Nuggets in 2008. He came back in the deal for Anthony last season.

The Los Angeles Clippers, meanwhile, may offer Smith only the veteran’s minimum for the remainder of this season.

Smith is a previous colleague of Anthony’s in Denver. He averaged 12.3 points and 4.1 rebounds in 2010-11, shooting 39 percent from 3-point range. He has averaged 12.5 points per game during his 7-year career.

Coach Mike D’Antoni asserted he hadn’t yet considered how it’s possible to find minutes for Smith on a Knicks team with Landry Fields and Iman Shumpert getting major playing time at shooting guard.

“We’ll find out, but that’ll be a fence we’ll get over,” D’Antoni claimed after Friday’s shootaround. “Certainly, he’s a talented basketball player and you can always use talent. But essentially it’s not going to change up a whole lot what we’re doing.”

The coach accepted that Fields would continue to begin at shooting guard “for right now.”

The Knicks have wrestled with perimeter shooting for much of the season. They enter play Friday ranked 20th in field target percentage (43 %) and 26th in 3-point field goal % (30 %).

They are hoping that Smith, a profession 37 percent 3-point shooter, will help.

Smith started his career straight out of high school, taking drafted by the New Orleans Hornets in 2004. In 2006, he was traded, together with P.J. Brown, to the Bulls for present Knicks center Tyson Chandler.

The Bulls, though, shipped him to Denver 6 days later for Howard Eisley and draft picks.

There have been worries concerning Smith’s attitude. In Dec.2006, he was concerned in an affray between the NY Knicks and Denver Nuggets at the Garden. It was the atrocious fight in the NBA since the legendary melee in Detroit between the Pistons and Pacers 2 years before.

For their parts in the Garden fight, Smith and Anthony were suspended 10 and 15 games, consequently.