Walsh preserves salary-cap space

GREENBURGH, N.Y. - Even draft night for the Knicks was all about preserving salary-cap space. Though there were opportunities to move into the first round last night and secure one of the players at the top of their list, Donnie Walsh resisted for the sake of preserving every penny of his franchise's hard-earned money.

"Without a doubt," Walsh said, "we want to preserve the cap. That's been our goal for two years . . . We want to make sure our position is unchanged as much as we could."

They'll have more than $30 million to spend come Thursday, when the NBA free-agency period officially begins.

The Knicks, whose first-round pick (ninth overall) was owned by the Utah Jazz (by way of the Phoenix Suns, who acquired it in the Stephon Marbury trade in January 2004), were believed to be hoping that their main target, New Mexico guard Darington Hobson, would slip to them at No. 38. That appeared possible until the Milwaukee Bucks snatched him up at No. 37.

It was a bitter reminder of last year's draft, when Stephen Curry was taken by the Golden State Warriors at No. 7, one pick before the Knicks' position.

Instead, the Knicks came away with sweet-shooting guard Andy Rautins of Syracuse. With their pick at No. 39, they took an under-the-radar athletic talent in swingman Landry Fields, an All-Pac-10 selection from Stanford.

The Knicks, according to multiple sources, planned to purchase the No. 44 pick from the Bucks for the rights to 7-foot center Jerome Jordan of Tulsa. Jordan was born in Kingston, Jamaica, which is the birthplace of Patrick Ewing.

"I think we got guys, for where we picked, that were good picks," Walsh said of a draft that he felt was fairly even outside the lottery.

Along with Hobson, another player high on the Knicks' list was Iowa State forward Craig Brackins, but he went 21st overall to Oklahoma City.

Rautins comes from good stock. His father, Leo, was a first-round pick of the 76ers in 1983 and spent time in Knicks training camp for the 1987-88 season. Leo Rautins currently is the head coach of the Canadian national team and works as an analyst for Toronto Raptors television broadcasts.

Andy Rautins was the star of upstate Jamesville-Dewitt High, which defeated Amityville in the 2004 state championship game.

Fields impressed the Knicks at his predraft workout June 14. He recorded the second-highest vertical leap (39 inches) among the 58 players brought in during the last six weeks. Arkansas guard Courtney Fortson topped him with a 401/2-inch vertical the next day.

The Knicks need bodies to fill out their roster. They currently have four players under contract for next season, not including Bill Walker, who has a team option that the Knicks don't have to pick up until August.

Mike D'Antoni said Toney Douglas and Walker have been working out at the team's facility. Walker is down to 227 pounds, according to D'Antoni. He came to the Knicks from the Celtics in the Nate Robinson trade weighing 254.

"He's very athletic now and he's jumping out of the gym," D'Antoni said of Walker. "He's back to his athletic form when he was dominating camps, and we're excited about him."