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New York Knicks General Manager Isiah Thomas wants the team to win every game possible, whether it's preseason or regular season. The idea is to re-establish a winning tradition in the Garden. To win fans back and have a hot team.

"Winning is not a sometimes thing, it is an all the time thing," Thomas said to the New York Daily news and other media yesterday. "You don't do things right every once in a while, you do them right all the time. Winning is a habit and unfortunately so is losing. That comes from Vince Lombardi. I wish I could take credit for that ... but I'm adapting that."

It's quite possible that the Knicks finish the season with a winning record. In the newly realigned NBA, they're in an extremely weak division -- the Atlantic. With New York are the Boston Celtics, New Jersey Nets, Philadelphia 76ers and Toronto Raptors. All five teams have question marks, but with last year's "success" and summer roster changes, the Knicks have the edge. Boston added an old Gary Payton and lots of nice rookies. New Jersey dumped half their team and is rebuilding. Philadelphia is experimenting with Allen Iverson at point guard, will enjoy a healthy Glenn Robinson, emerging frontcourt talent, and added an athletic rookie in Andre Iguodala. Eric Snow is gone, but they've got potential to surprise. And Toronto has last year's team plus badly-needed health, and a big rookie center.

The Atlantic is wide open. Other than New Jersey, each team has a shot to win the division.

The Knicks are hoping Allan Houston will eventually return to previous all-star form. Right now, his knee isn't ready. "Making progress, and it feels good," Houston said to the New York Times. "But right now I'm still at the point where I just don't want to go all out."

Fortunately, with new Knick Jamal Crawford on board, Houston can take his time. Crawford hasn't been on winning teams, but he also hasn't played next to someone like Stephon Marbury. On the negative side, the knock on both players is that they don't tend to make teammates better. But the good news is, both players are already big-time scorers. Crawford's field goal percentage could use some help, but he's definitely got the ability to bump it up. In today's NBA, if a team has a few guys who can put 20 points up, they have potential to at least get a round or two into the playoffs. Also in New York's backcourt, a healthy, focused Penny Hardaway will help. He isn't athletic like he used to be, but with his experience comes smart play that can help a squad win.

In New York's frontcourt, there's good news in the form of second year power forward Mike Sweetney. "Sweets" has looked excellent. He's in better shape than last season, and with help from Knicks assistant Mark AcGuirre Sweetney has added NBA-ready offensive moves. While Kurt Thomas is expected to continue starting at power forward, Sweetney could someday take over. And even without a starting job, Sweetney will get plenty of minutes and time with the ball.

Athletic small forward Tim Thomas hopes to take his game to another level this season. People have been waiting for Tim to do that for many years now. But with defenders' attention focused on the Knicks backcourt, less attention should be on Thomas, so perhaps he can use that to his advantage and step everything up. Last season we saw plenty of impressive offensive outputs from him. Consistency will help.

The center spot isn't pretty. Nazr Mohammed wins the starting position by default; because he's big. Vin Baker will back him up. If anything special comes from either player, it'll be a bonus. Mohammed will be counted on to defend and rebound. Baker is needed for additional offense.

The Knicks should be good enough this season to stir up some excitement in Madison Square Garden. At the very least, that's an improvement over the situation just one year ago.