NEW YORK -- By trading for Antonio McDyess, Scott Layden has put the Knicks' payroll over the $90 million mark for the first time in team history. But can all that money buy New York its first NBA championship since 1972-73?

	New Knicks power forward Antonio McDyess has injury concerns, just like Marcus Camby.

That's the million-dollar question -- or shall we say, the $90.9 million question, that being what the Knicks are on the books for heading into the 2002-03 season.

The short answer is the same one they've been saying around here since the days of Walt Frazier almost 30 years ago: Probably not.

Not that the people who run the Knicks, starting with Garden CEO James Dolan, seem to care. Dolan and his charges are only too happy to see the Knicks back in the playoff picture. Winning championships has never been at the top of the Garden brass' agenda. How do we know this? The Knicks' method of constantly adding to their veteran mix -- and never rebuilding -- has gotten them to only two Finals since they last raised a championship banner. And one of those came in the lockout-shortened 1999 season.

What they do raise in the Garden, expertly, we might add, is ticket prices. For the coming season, they departed with the norm, but only because the Knicks finished in the lottery last season. But with front-row tickets going for a league-high $1,500, the Garden doesn't believe it can ever tear down the team completely and wait three or four years to build a winner. Not with the Knicks purporting to own the league's No. 1 active sellout streak.

As ever in Knickland, their idea of the distant future is a week from today. A year from right now? It might as well be next century. They had a chance to start a rebuilding era when Patrick Ewing left town two seasons ago. But they made the conscious decision to continue to revamp on the fly ane gave Allan Houston a new $100 million contract -- bidding against themselves.

Houston, obviously, is not a franchise talent. And that's the biggest problem with the way the Knicks do business. They continue to overpay for talent, in the process never getting under the salary cap to attract the kind of player who will give their fans hope that they'll ever see another ticker-tape parade.

"I expect we'll always have the No. 1 payroll -- because we're in New York and it's the No. 1 market," Dolan said a few months back.

So now they're right at the top after importing a player who arrives with as many questions about his medical past as Marcus Camby, the key player who went to Denver in the draft-day deal. McDyess, who turns 28 in September, missed 72 games last season after having major surgery on his left knee. He also has had surgery on his right knee.

Yes, McDyess is better than Camby. For starters, he has more skills, and a game. But his strengths -- getting up and down the court, outleaping other forwards -- are based on athleticism. So you have to wonder if he'll ever be the same player who averaged 21 points and 12 rebounds two years ago.

McDyess complained during the season that the surgery on his left knee, to repair the patella tendon, had robbed him of his athleticism. As recently as two months ago, he said: "I see some of the rebounds come off the rim, the balls are below the net, and I can barely get them. That really gets me mad at myself. I know how I used to play and I can't do those things that I used to do."

More than a few general managers saw that quote and put red flags up when the Nuggets began to shop McDyess around the league. The best we can figure it, he must have taken a side trip to Lourdes before arriving in New York for his introductory news conference.

	“	There's no doubt in my mind I'll be a better player. The doctors tell me my knee will never hurt again. ”
		— Antonio McDyess

"There's no doubt in my mind I'll be a better player," he said last Friday in the Garden, where he was treated like a conquering hero. "The doctors tell me my knee will never hurt again."

It's doubtful McDyess got a written guarantee on that. But we won't get a read on if he can take the pounding of an 82-game season until he takes the court for training camp.

The Knicks, of course, believe McDyess will be fine. But their fans also know what happened when Luc Longley arrived in the Glen Rice trade two seasons ago. Longley spent his days in New York rehabbing from injuries he had in Phoenix and then hobbled off into retirement.

Other questions about McDyess center on just what kind of impact he'll have, if he's healthy. He certainly doesn't boast the résumé of a winner. The most wins he ever led Denver to was 40, and he has played in all of four playoff games in his life.

But he could be the answer for the Knicks, at least in terms of helping this team back into the playoffs in the lowly East. They needed to find a way to get defenses to collapse into the post. McDyess should be able to do that, thereby creating open shots for Houston and Latrell Sprewell, who last season expertly demonstrated their lack of off-the-dribble skills.

Houston and Sprewell's limitations were pronounced, as the Knicks fielded the fifth-lowest scoring team and the fourth-worst shooting squad while playing in front of the most empty seats in the Garden in years. Without Ewing or even Larry Johnson around to suck opponents in, Houston had his worst shooting season (43.7 percent) since his first year in New York. Sprewell finished with his lowest field-goal percentage (40.4) since Golden State.

No interior presence translated into both Houston and Sprewell standing on the perimeter, hoisting 3-pointers, as the team finished out of the playoffs for the first time since 1987. Sprewell took more than 400 3-pointers, after shooting 250 in the previous two seasons combined. Houston fired up nearly 100 more than the previous season.

As long as the Knicks fielded this flawed team -- with no "inside" to their inside-out game -- Layden had to go for someone who could give him a semblance of a low-post game. So he went for McDyess, who gives them box-office juice and some much-needed buzz, with the Eastern Conference champion Nets sitting only five miles west of the Garden.

In New York, it's always all about going for it now.

And in the end, always coming up short.

Mitch Lawrence, who covers the NBA for the New York Daily News, writes a regular NBA column for ESPN.com.