Allan Houston, an eternal optimist despite the Knicks' troubles the last two seasons, today became the first Knicks teammate of Latrell Sprewell's to comment publicly on the deal that sent Sprewell to Minnesota and brought Keith Van Horn to town.

Houston, the Knicks' captain, would seem to be the best face for the maligned organization to place on display. But asked whether he viewed the deal positively, Houston admitted he was ambivalent.

"We'll see if it's a positive move," he said today. "I know the Knicks' intentions were to get bigger. It's just weird because in this business, you can lose somebody who you've had and who's been so valuable to you, to your team, and someone who has just been such a big part of the organization, and that's just part of the business.

"And unfortunately it was somebody who everyone in New York loved. He brought an energy to us that we haven't had. I don't know."

Much of the Knicks' success this season will hinge on the condition of Antonio McDyess and of Houston, who is recovering from off-season arthroscopic surgery on his right knee. Houston said he stopped using crutches in the last week and has begun running in water.

Van Horn, traded to the Knicks from Philadelphia, said Monday that he believes the deal will improve the team. But Houston, while saying he hoped for the best, admitted he wondered how the loss of Sprewell would affect the Knicks.

Just win, baby. Keith Van Horn knows that's all it will take to diminish the outrage Knick fans feel from last week's Latrell Sprewell blockbuster trade.

"I'm going to bring a lot of things to this team that's going to make it better," Van Horn said. "The team hasn't made the playoffs for two years. Their fans and organization are dying for a winning team. The fans really care about basketball in the city. My only objective is to help this team win. If we win, fans are happy."

They're not happy right now. The fans act as if GM Scott Layden broke up an Eastern Conference dynasty instead of a shrimpy unit that hadn't won a playoff series since 2000. After taking his Knick physical, Van Horn made an appearance at the Vanderbilt YMCA, answering questions from 25 kids aged 7 to 12. The campers are the only New Yorkers who haven't called Van Horn soft.

But Van Horn knows Sprewell, fresh from choking P.J. Carlesimo, faced the same nasty New York sentiments when he arrived before the 1999 lockout season.

"There was a lot of negative opinion when John Starks left and Latrell came as well," Van Horn said. "That's been the case with a lot of trades made in the area. The opinion is negative at first, then the player comes in and shows he can help the team and it changes. It's kind of how it works here in New York."

(From Sunday)

The Rocky Mountain Revue ended Saturday night.
   
Now, the worrying starts.
   
Moments after the Jazz scored a 71-68 victory over the New York Knicks at Salt Lake Community College, rookie free agents Andre Hutson and Quinton Ross could only wonder whether impressive performances in the summer league were enough to earn an invitation to training camp in October.

While the Knicks traded their most popular player last week in Latrell Sprewell, arguably their second-most popular player, Maciej Lampe, tore it up at the summer league in Salt Lake City at the Rocky Mountain Revue.

The 18-year-old Lampe was named this weekend to the First-Team All Revue after averaging 17.2 points and 7.0 rebounds in the five games. He shot 45 percent from 3-point range (9 of 20), finding the long-range touch that deserted him in Boston.

With center Elden Campbell now signed with Detroit, it's looking as if the Knicks won't be spending all of their $4.9 million exception and can use part of it to sign Lampe so he can afford to pay his contract buyout which is being negotiated down from $2 million.

When Billy King, the 76ers' president and general manager, flew to Boston for the Reebok Pro Summer League two weeks ago, he had more on his mind than evaluating young players.

Finally out from under the imposing shadow of Larry Brown, King was thinking trade from the moment he set foot in the gym at the University of Massachusetts-Boston.

And 10 days later, late Wednesday night, he turned that thought - and hard work - into results.

Thanks to inside knowledge of what his fellow general managers wanted and his ability to organize complex negotiations, King engineered a four-team deal that involved the Sixers, the Atlanta Hawks, the New York Knicks and the Minnesota Timberwolves.

The Sixers got forward Glenn "Big Dog" Robinson and a 2006 second-round pick from the Hawks, plus center Marc Jackson from the Timberwolves.

King sent forward Keith Van Horn to the Knicks and a future No. 1 pick, plus forward Randy Holcomb and cash, to the Hawks.

The Timberwolves got the shooting guard they were looking for in the Knicks' Latrell Sprewell, and the Hawks received salary-cap relief by taking on the contract of Terrell Brandon, the Minnesota point guard who had not played in nearly two years and is expected to retire without playing again.

Everybody, it seemed, got what they wanted. Thanks to King.

P. Diddy is on point. The New York Knicks do need some new blood up in there.

In fact, many sports franchises need some new blood up in there. And who has better blood than entertainers, those proud bearers of riches, fame and eccentricity? If only stars would follow Diddy's imaginative thinking and ponder careers in pro sports ownership.

"I think I could do a good job," said rapper Sean Combs, a k a P. Diddy, formerly Puff Daddy and Puffy, while chatting with Howard Stern last week about the Knicks. "I think [they need] some new blood up in there."

So Knicks owner James Dolan should put Diddy up in there. If nothing else, it would be fun. A rapper running an NBA team? Can't wait for the news conferences. The self-righteous would cringe.

"I'm publicly puttin' it out there, because they're not taking my calls," Diddy told Stern of Dolan's refusal to listen.

In honor of Diddy, we're publicly puttin' this out there: It's time for sweeping and dramatic change across the sports ownership landscape. It's time for more entertainers to get up in there.

Relax, Knicks fans. Your week could have been worse.
James Dolan could have given Scott Layden an extension.

With this ownership group, you never know. That reward very well could be coming to the team's president.

After banishing Latrell Sprewell to Minnesota, where the Knicks have to see him only twice a season and where he'll get back to the playoffs, Layden just might merit a few more years in Dolan's eyes.

"Our goal this offseason is to improve the Knicks for now and into the future by focusing on getting younger and bigger," said Layden, trying to defend his deal for Keith Van Horn, who on his best day doesn't stack up to Sprewell.

The key phrase here is "improve the Knicks." When a team wins only 37 games and fails to make the playoffs for the second year running, there is a lot of room for improvement. With the Knicks, any progress has to start at the defensive end, where Don Chaney's team continues to back-slide.

It's not just a height issue. Under Layden, the Knicks have exported good defensive players, have seen others retire and have imported only suspect ones. Meanwhile, Chaney has failed to put the kind of emphasis on defense we used to have around here when Jeff Van Gundy was getting the team into the playoffs on an annual basis.

As Nets senior vice president, Willis Reed saw nearly all Keith Van Horn's games at the Meadowlands, and saw every game of the Nets' first playoff run to the Finals in 2002.

That's why Reed, now the Knicks' special basketball adviser, can't understand how the newest Knick has earned a reputation as a playoff choker.

"The Nets go all the way to the championship round and most of the games he played well in, they won," Reed told The Post from Utah, where the Knicks' summer league team finished its two-week run. "When he didn't play well, we didn't win. He had a bad Finals [against the Lakers], but everyone did. He was the key reason they got to where they did. I thought he was significant in that team getting to the Finals for the first time."

When Kenyon Martin ripped Van Horn after the Laker sweep, too much blame was heaped on the 6-10 forward. It's no wonder Van Horn admitted Thursday he was happy the Spurs beat the Nets last month, with Martin awful in the clincher.

Van Horn's scoring in the playoffs last spring with Philly dipped from 15.9 to 10.4 in the Sixers' two rounds. His rebounding went up, though, from 7.1 to 7.5. Van Horn had a poor-shooting series against Detroit, but Sixers coach Larry Brown took the blame, saying he featured Allen Iverson too much in the offense all year.

The larger concerns are Van Horn's man-to-man defense in defending the small-forward position against quicker players. Reed chuckles.

"There aren't a lot of great defensive players in this league," Reed said. "Most guys get drafted because they play offense. That's what he does well. Just do that and we're going to have to work on the things. He's a guy you have to worry about guarding, too."

Yes, Reed liked the Van Horn/Latrell Sprewell exchange because he felt the Knicks no longer could get away with being undersized at all three frontcourt positions. Two straight lottery berths proved that. Sprewell's shrimpy Knicks haven't won a playoff series since the 1999-2000 season.

They manipulate the careers of coaches from their basements, cubicles and breakfast nooks while wearing suits, curlers and khakis.

They boot up to take down rivals using D.S.L., dial-ups and wireless magic as they tap out rage, rumors and revelations.

Do you know No1Fan636 or MyTeamJoe or MustWin10? Masked by the mousepad, they wield fantasy-camp-like powers via the online message board ? a venting place that provides cyberfanatics a chance to toy with the lives of sports figures they loathe and love.

First, the loathing. Over the past three months, Mike Price's strip club escapades as Alabama's coach, the N.C.A.A. basketball pool fiasco involving Washington's Rick Neuheisel and the party-on side of Iowa State's Larry Eustachy all began as tragic flaws that were ratted out on the Internet.

Certainly, the coaches are responsible for their mindless actions, but as the rumors of each misdeed spread unchecked online, as their missteps became uncontainable with the reach of the Internet, they couldn't combat the venom delivered without a name. Neither could university officials.

"The Internet has changed the landscape," said Jeremy Foley, athletic director at the University of Florida, who routinely ignored pleas lodged on FireRonZook.com last year. "You dismiss a lot of it as malicious and ignore it because it could be coming from anyone, like an opponent, but, yes, if something credible comes up, you do have to check it out."

Now, the loving. Over the past three weeks, the Kobe Bryant devotees who have defiantly defended their hero's character against sexual assault charges have turned the accuser's anonymity into a sham and her reputation into a passage fit for a bathroom wall.

Owner Mark Cuban has denied a published report that he's trying to trade center Raef LaFrentz to the New York Knicks.

According to the Daily News of New York, the Mavericks are attempting to ship LaFrentz and another player to the Knicks for power forward Kurt Thomas and point guard Charlie Ward. The article said the deal can't take place before Tuesday because of salary-cap constraints.

But Cuban said the Mavericks are not in any discussions to trade LaFrentz to the Knicks, and coach Don Nelson has a policy against discussing potential trades.

Thomas left the Mavericks for the Knicks via free agency on Jan. 22, 1999, during the lockout-shortened season. Thomas had agreed to sign with the Mavericks, but shocked Nelson when he bolted to the Knicks, who offered him approximately $200,000 more than the Mavericks.

A former TCU and Dallas Hillcrest High School standout, Thomas could give the Mavericks the tough-guy persona they're missing down low. Thomas, who turns 31 on Oct. 4, has two years left on his contract and will earn $5.394 million next season and $5.8 million in 2004-05.