GREENBURGH, N.Y. — Stephen Curry frequently trades text messages with the player who already is the lead character in the Knicks’ Summer of 2010 free agent dreams: LeBron James.

Curry also shot so well during Wednesday’s workout that he said coach Mike D’Antoni joked, “We can’t draft you ... because Allan Houston said he doesn’t want to be the second-best shooter in Knicks’ history.”
The nation’s top Division I scorer last season and son of longtime NBA three-point specialist Dell Curry also said — all things being equal — he’d love to hear the Knicks spend the eighth-overall pick (or one higher if they trade up) on him two weeks from Thursday at the NBA draft.
“It’s the system that I’ve played in all my life, up and down, up-tempo,” he said at the team’s practice facility following Wednesday’s workout. “So comparing how I played in college and how it translates into the NBA, this is the system to be in. And D’Antoni, with Steve Nash, he knows how to develop a point guard, so why wouldn’t I want to come here?”
Well, because many of the pre-draft projections now have him moving up the board, out of the Knicks’ reach.
Hence the trade-up talk.
Hence the look they also took Wednesday at point guard Jrue Holiday, a player who after just one season at UCLA is soaring up projected draft boards.
“Steph looked great knocking down his shot,” said Holiday, at 6 feet 4, an inch taller than the slender Curry.
“It’s what I do and I do it well,” a confident Curry said of a shot he said he’s honed since he and his younger brother Seth (who just transferred to Duke) started hanging around NBA gyms with their father.
D’Antoni, Curry said, “runs a great system that I can flourish in” as a point guard, he believes, a spot Knicks president Donnie Walsh said he was suited for after Curry completed his first full season (his third at Davidson) running the point.
“He’s about 6-3, a very young-looking player, but that can be good,” said Walsh. “He could grow. I expect him to be bigger, but he knows how to play the game; he knows how to shoot and he sees the floor.”
Still, it’s Curry’s shooting ability (41.2 percent on the shorter college three for his career and 46.7 overall) that fits D’Antoni’s system best — although his friendship with LeBron certainly doesn’t hurt.
“I’ll be dropping him lines if I’m here, trying to get him to come next year,” Curry said of what he called once-a-week exchanges with someone he remembers showing up for Davidson’s Sweet 16 NCAA tournament victory over Wisconsin in 2008, before Curry reciprocated when the Cavaliers came to Charlotte.
“He’s helped me with what to expect, as well, with the draft process ... with the hype.” Curry insists the Knicks haven’t promised him anything, but he likely won’t slip by them.
If he makes it that far.
“It’s great for me to go as high as I can, but coming here would be equally fun for me,” he said. “I’m coming into this with an open mind.”
Plus a valuable connection for 2010.