Media Day Highlights: Mike Woodson

The first action by newly-minted general manager and president of basketball operations Steve Mills was picking up the option for the 2014-15 season on Knicks head coach Mike Woodson’s contract. With that, Mills removed the “lame duck” label from Woodson and provided what appears to be a show of good faith.

So for the time being, Mike Woodson will remain the coach of the New York Knicks. Woodson said at the Knicks Media Day that he was “grateful” the team picked up his option.

“I am very excited about Mr. Dolan and Steve Mills giving me an opportunity to come back another year,” Woodson said. “I try to deal with my situation year-to-year. It’s never been about me in terms of what I do. It’s strictly about the team and what we’re trying to pursue here as a team.”

The first big task for Woodson will be preparing his team for the rigors of an NBA season. That includes determining a starting lineup, a task that appears to be particularly daunting given the depth of the roster. A big part of that is where does Carmelo Anthony fit best: at small forward or power forward?

“I don’t know [what the lineup will be],” Woodson said. “I’ll use this training camp to evaluate that. We have I think seven or eight exhibition games so I can experiment with it a little bit more if I wanna go traditional or stay with Melo at the four. But make no mistake about it, Melo was—the last two years that I’ve been here—has been pretty good at the four.”

The Knicks excelled last season with a two-point guard lineup and Melo at the four. For now, there’s no rush to set a lineup in stone.

“I’ll experiment with it once we get started,” Woodson said. “And make the decision come the latter part of our vet camp as we near our first game with the Bucks.”

A big factor in determining the lineup is the arrival of former No. 1 overall pick Andrea Bargnani. The seven-footer was essentially run out of Toronto after a few injury-plagued seasons before being traded to the Knicks. However, there is no denying that when healthy, Bargnani is a talented offensive player.

Bargnani is only two seasons removed from scoring 21.4 points per game, and averages 15.2 points on 43.7 percent shooting from the field and 36.1 percent from 3-point for his career. He is not known as a defender or rebounder (career 4.8 rpg), but those are Woodson’s coaching specialties.

“I was very excited about bringing Andrea onboard with the Knicks,” Woodson said. “I think he’s a talented seven-footer that can do a lot of things from an offensive standpoint. Defensively I think he will be fine once he learns rotations and learns the defensive system that we will put in.”

Woodson is particularly fond of Bargnani’s ability to become an offensive nightmare against opposing fours and fives.

“I like the makeup of what he brings,” Woodson said. “He can pass the ball, he can shoot it, we can post him some. So from that standpoint, it gives us another really nice offensive weapon on our ball club. So I’m looking forward to coaching him.”

Another big addition is that of point guard Beno Udrih. He brings championship experience from his time with the Spurs and fills the hole vacated by the retired Jason Kidd. After one-and-a-half seasons of low-usage with the Bucks, Udrih was traded at the trade deadline to the Magic where he averaged 10.2 points, 6.1 assists, and shot 39.6 percent from 3-point in 27.3 minutes a game.

“[Udrih] knows how to run a basketball team,” Woodson said. “He’s a nice piece to our team that can do a number of things. He can defend, he can run a team and he can score the basketball a little bit. So that helps us.”

There are some other notable players joining the Knicks this year, names like the No. 24 pick, Tim Hardaway Jr., undrafted rookie C.J. Leslie, Toure’ Murry, Jeremy Tyler and the native New Yorker: Metta World Peace. The challenge for this year will be making sure everyone is ready to contribute when called upon. Just look to last year, when injuries forced guys to step up.

“I know we had a lot of injuries, but regardless of who we played, everybody contributed,” Woodson said. “I think that has a lot to do with the development program that we’ve implemented over the last two years. People like [Chris] Copeland and [James] White, who started a few games for us last season. It all seemed to click and work.”

But this year, for the first time in a few seasons, the talent brought in is mostly young guys. That is a far cry from last season, when the Knicks were home to four of the six oldest players in the NBA. They were also the oldest team in NBA history.

“Last year, make no mistake about it, those veteran guys helped us,” Woodson said. “It wasn’t like they played big minutes, but they were a big part of what we did last year. You don’t win 54 games without everybody being a part of it.”

Woodson seems confident that this year’s new faces will be able to contribute as well once they are brought up to speed.

“We’ve got new guys again…some of the younger guys…we gotta get them acclimated to what we’re doing from an offensive standpoint and a defensive standpoint,” Woodson said. “And it’s gonna be my job to put it together like we did the last two years and win. It’s all about team and it’s all about one goal and that’s to win a title. That’s what it’s all about.”

It will be interesting to see how Woodson organizes his lineup and perhaps even more interesting to see how he will utilize all the pieces he has when they are on the floor.

Call me crazy, but I’m expecting big things from the Knicks this year.

And Mike Woodson is a big reason why.