The Knicks won a playoff game last year for the first time in 11 years, and expectations are even higher this season after the team made a flurry of offseason acquisitions. But as four-time NBA champion center Shaquille O’Neal sees it, they are a long way off from being an elite team.
O’Neal said the Knicks got better leadership over the summer with the additions of Jason Kidd, Marcus Camby, Raymond Felton and Kurt Thomas, but it won’t necessarily translate to more wins.
“They’re going to be a good team with a lot of tested veterans, but we’ll see where that takes them,” O’Neal said last night at a Manhattan dinner for The Buoniconti Fund, which raises money for spinal cord research.
The Knicks also re-signed J.R. Smith and Steve Novak and have the reigning defensive player of the year in Tyson Chandler, but they lost Landry Fields and last season’s sensation Jeremy Lin in free agency. O’Neal is unsure the Knicks can match up with the defending conference champions.
“Unfortunately, they still have to go through the Heat, so Carmelo [Anthony] and Amar’e [Stoudemire], they got to start playing at the level that LeBron [James] and [Dwyane] Wade are playing at to bring prosperity back to New York,” he said.
Walt “Clyde” Frazier, the franchise great and broadcaster, said he thinks the Knicks can contend. Frazier seemed optimistic Stoudemire can recapture his All-Star form after training with Hall of Fame center Hakeem Olajuwon this summer.
“I hope so,” Frazier said. “I like the new acquisitions of Kidd and Camby. It’s disappointing that we lost [Lin]. I wanted to see what he could do in a full season. The Heat obviously are going to be the favorite, but I think the Knicks can compete with them this year.”
O’Neal, who was born in Newark, was disappointed the Nets left his hometown for Brooklyn.
“I don’t think it’s good at all,” he said. “I think they should have stayed there in Newark. I wish I would have gotten in conversations sooner to make that happen. But hopefully we can get together and bring a team to Newark. That’s still a dream of mine to bring a team back to Newark. We’ll see if that happens.”
The Knicks and Nets meet Nov. 1 at the brand-new Barclays Center in Brooklyn in the season opener for both teams.
david.satriano@nypost.com