Knicks should follow Spurs' blueprint

Gregg Popovich said he never had heard of Gary Neal "until he walked into the gym." But it was what he saw in Neal that turned the Spurs' decision to sign the relative unknown, undrafted player from the European circuit to a guaranteed contract in the summer into a brilliant move.

Just as the decision to take a chance on DeJuan Blair with a second-round pick last year, though every other team in the league passed on the burly big man because both of his knees lacked an anterior cruciate ligament. Popovich saw a player that didn't lack heart.

But Popovich doesn't try to pretend there is some secret formula to the remarkable ongoing success of the Spurs, who, in typical understated fashion, came into New York last night with the league's best record.

"Come on, I'm not Plato," he said. "We got Tim Duncan."

He also mentioned the Spurs finding Tony Parker with the third-to-last pick in the first round in 2001 and Manu Ginobili with the second-to-last pick in the entire 1999 draft.

"I said it a thousand times," Popovich added. "We didn't screw it up."

They have provided the example of how to build and maintain a championship-level organization in a small market. And in this new age of building superteams with established stars, San Antonio built their Big Three with one fortunate bounce of a lottery ball in 1998 to get Duncan and smart decisions thereafter.

And it's not just the Parker and Ginobili picks, but the way they find quality role players and make them fit. Bruce Bowen, the backbone of the Spurs' defense for many years during their championship run, is another example. Even current Knick Roger Mason Jr., a journeyman up until his stop in San Antonio, played an important role until he was let go last summer (a move Popovich explained thusly: "We went in a different direction, just because."). Neal and Blair are the latest on that list, as is the smart decision to draft George Hill out of IUPUI with the 26th overall pick in 2008.

When Donnie Walsh took over the Knicks, he emphasized that his goal wasn't just to turn things around, but to set the franchise up for years to come. It starts with that critical first piece, a star-quality player such as Amar'e Stoudemire, who can walk onto any court and give you a chance to win, as he has proved already this season. But while Stoudemire is the stone, you need mortar in the form of players such as Wilson Chandler, a late first-round pick in 2007 who scored a season-high 31 points in the Knicks' impressive 128-115 win last night; Shawne Williams, a reclamation project who turned into a terrific gamble; and, of course, second-round gem Landry Fields.

Similar to how Popovich discovered Neal, Walsh saw Fields for the first time on draft night. The Knicks were planning their picks and, as usual, the scouts had differing opinions. Western scout Mark Hughes was pushing Fields and Walsh asked to see video of the Stanford senior. He took one look and said, "That's the guy I want."

Fields was the last name mentioned among the players the Knicks acquired during the busy summer of 2010, but he has emerged as one of the most important, perhaps third behind Stoudemire and Raymond Felton. And while the hot pursuit of Carmelo Anthony may eventually elevate the Knicks from a playoff contender to something more, they're still going to need to fill in the mortar.

"You have to find players that are willing to fulfill roles," Popovich said, "and you have to know what roles you need to have filled to go around your star players."

This is why the Knicks are hoping Anthony will hold off on signing an extension before the trade deadline and instead go into free agency next summer, when the Knicks can create the salary-cap room to sign him without losing anyone from the impressive supporting cast they already have assembled.

With some of the highest payrolls in the league, the big-money Knicks tried to buy a winning team over the last decade and failed miserably. Perhaps, with small-market thinking and levelheaded planning, they can eventually build a dynasty of their own.