Knicks Rumors: Should New York Sign Grant Hill or Grab a True Center?

Now that it appears that the New York Knicks won't be acquiring Chris Paul anytime soon, that puts the Knicks in a bind, but also gives them options for when free agency begins.

If the club doesn't go out and shell out multi-year deals, then reading in between the lines you would think that no matter what happens with Paul this year, the Knicks still feel like the front-runners to land him next year.

Until Paul signs a contract extension, the Knicks are still in the running for his services.

But in the meantime, the team has some decisions to make for this season.

With the Knicks linked closely to Grant Hill and others, it begs the question of whether they should sign Hill or aggressively attempt to add a true center?

While I like Hill a lot and he's had a resurgence as a player the past couple of seasons, this decision should be an easy one.

Unless Hill grew a few inches, put on 100 pounds of muscle and became a dominant center during the NBA lockout, acquiring a true center still needs to be priority No. 1 for this team.

It just doesn't make much sense to ignore the biggest offseason need for this team and that's size in the middle. Not only size, but someone that can play defense and rebound effectively.

Hill isn't a true 2-guard and neither is Carmelo Anthony. While adding Hill certainly makes the bench stronger, to get proper value from signing Hill they both would likely have to be on the floor together a good bit of time.

In essence that makes the Knicks smaller with Amar'e Stoudemire having to play center.

Being too small has been a problem in the past for the Knicks and even if they slide Hill or Anthony to the 2 and the other plays the 3, they still would be better off landing a true center instead.

All the problems the Knicks had defensively a season ago will still be there by not making landing a true center the top priority.

The Knicks can score without Hill, what they can't do is defend the paint and Hill won't help them do that.