By Nina Mandell
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
MANHATTAN — The day the Knicks have waited two years for is here. LeBron James is a free man.
For now.
The Knicks will make their sales pitch to the coveted superstar Thursday afternoon, one of six teams scheduled to court King James now that he's become a free agent. They spent the last two seasons dumping contracts and clearing salary cap space to sign the superstar.
The team will run a full court press on James lead by team owner James Dolan, president Donnie Walsh, coach Mike D'Antoni and Allan Houston.
The Knicks have to convince King James they can win a championship. They plan to promise LeBron that they can bring in another top-level free agent, including Joe Johnson, Amar'e Stoudemire or Chris Bosh and trade for another star like Tyson Chandler, Tony Parker or Carmelo Anthony during the season, the New York Post reported.
D'Antoni will then go over how James can fit into his high-speed offense and Houston will discuss life in the Big Apple, said the Post. But life in the Big Apple is something LeBron already knows a bit about after spending last weekend partying with Jay-Z and Mary J. Blige.
Getting Johnson to New York is looking increasingly more difficult for the Knicks after the Hawks offered him a max contract or $119 million over six years, multiple sources reported Thursday.
The Knicks were spotted meeting with Johnson in the early hours of Thursday, Post reporter Marc Berman reported on Twitter.
Johnson is a valuable part of the Knicks' pitch to James, but they do not have enough cap space to realistically offer him a contract that could beat Atlanta's, where he has played for five years. Early Thursday, Yahoo! Sports reported that Johnson was going to take the Hawks' deal, leaving the Knicks to put a full court press on Stoudemire before meeting with King James.
Meanwhile, Knick fans should start checking their milk cartons for all-star David Lee.
Lee, who's also a free agent, apparently isn't coming back to the Knicks as he's scheduled meetings with four teams and his likeness is missing from the Knicks website.
The site does feature a list of prominent free agents: James, of course, but also Bosh, Johnson, Stoudamire, Wade and Rudy Gay.
The only current Knicks visible on the site are Danilo Gallinari and Toney Douglas.
After making their pitch to LeBron, the Knicks brass plans on flying to Chicago to meet with Bosh and Heat star Dwayne Wade on Friday, the Post reported.
And the competition for those stars is ratcheting up by the minute as well.
Even Rockets star Yao Ming weighed in on rumors that Bosh was heading to Houston, telling him over Twitter, "Hey Chris, hopefully you'll play with us (Rockets) next season. I'll be healthy and I'd really look forward to playing together."
With rumors flying everywhere about what matters most to James and the other free agents, the New York Post — whose web site's background is set to the same Nets' ad that appears on a billboard close to Madison Square Garden — that James will pay $12.35 million more in taxes if he chooses New York over Miami.
