Raymond Felton prepared for no All-Star call

Raymond Felton can't deny it.

"I'm having the best season of my career," the Knicks' point guard said.

But an All-Star season?

Three weeks ago, he had a decent shot to make his first All-Star appearance.

But Thursday, when the NBA announces the reserves for the Feb. 20 game in Los Angeles?

Call him a long shot.

That's OK with Felton — for whom just about everything's OK this season.

Play double-overtime with a stomach virus? Grind his way through games with a sore back, high ankle sprain or a sore wrist?

He's there.

He and Amar'e Stoudemire, from Day One of training camp, grabbed hold of the Knicks' steering wheel and decided they would lead the franchise out of the morass of the past decade.

"You certainly could use that adjective," teammate Roger Mason Jr. said. "Competitor, doing whatever it takes. Sometimes it's being feisty. Sometimes it's other things."

"A bulldog," Stoudemire called him.

"A worker bee," Chris Webber described him on NBA TV. "He is not one of these pretty point guards, prima donna guys. He does the hard things."

During the Knicks' current 4-8 stretch, he's shot just 34.8 percent and 25 percent on threes while averaging 14 points. That dropped his season-long numbers to 42 percent shooting, 33.2 percent on threes, and a 17.2 scoring average.

His assists are up, 9.2 in that stretch compared with the 8.9 he's averaging, and his turnovers are down, 2.9 compared with 3.3 overall.

But with fellow potential backcourt All-Stars such as Boston's Ray Allen and Rajon Rondo, plus Atlanta's Joe Johnson, producing impressive numbers with more successful teams, Felton could spend All-Star weekend with family in his native South Carolina.

Still, his impact on the Knicks, whose starting point guards the last six opening nights (Stephon Marbury, Chris Duhon) produced no playoff appearances, is substantial to those who've watched and competed against him this season.

"He's probably played better than anyone anticipated," Suns coach Alvin Gentry said. "Knowing him, and with the competitiveness that he has, it's not a surprise."

"He's a big, strong point guard who's just gotten ingrained into the system now of pushing the ball," one longtime NBA assistant and former head coach said. "He's great for the system, because I think his strength is one of the great things, his physical strength."

"One of the [off-season's] under-the-radar acquisitions was Raymond Felton," Kobe Bryant said. "That kind of snuck by everybody. [The Knicks] obviously added Stoudemire, but picking up Raymond was a huge help."