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With the nba cap, what u need to know is that if you are over the cap u can only sign free agents from your own team, or use the mid-level exemption which is an amount of money determined by the average salary of the league. You can also do a sign and trade, but the knicks have no where near enough to trade for Lebron.

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Is it possible to just sign him as a FA (and not trade for him)? I just think it would make sense for the Knicks to ensure they are under the cap the year he becomes a FA so we can at least have a shot at signing him.

Obviously if we have to trade for him we have no chance.

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This is not true. The Heat traded for Shaq. Sign and trades happen.

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Right but the Knicks don't have any talent to do a sign and trade for a player like Lebron, so our only chance is FA signing, no?

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Often an expiring contract + draft picks is enough, look at what the Lakers got for Shaq (Butler/Odom and Grant); or what Denver gave up for New Jersey (3 picks). It's not that unreasonable to believe, that Mo Taylor(for the $$ expiring contract), Trevor Ariza/Robinson/Lee/Frye (whichever young kid(s) ends up being good) and a few #1s would be more then enough. Knicks take Lebron and whatever garbage cleveland makes us take (I bet Ilgouskas will be almost crippled by 2007)

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That might be true except for two factors. 1. by 2007 Lebron could be the best player in the league and 2. More importantly the owner of the Cavs would have to be insane to let his team trade Lebron because Lebron is worth so much to the team marketing wise. If they lose Lebron, they are automatically rebuilding and they lose a large portion of their fan base.