Wow, it actually happened. Excuse the horrific pun, but the Melodrama is finally over. Last night, it was finally agreed upon that the New York Knicks acquired Carmelo Anthony, Chauncy Billups, and a pupu platter of Nuggets for Raymond Felton, Wilson Chandler, Danilo Gallinari, Timothy Mozgov and enough draft picks to make Mel Kiper a little excited. Let's forget for a second what the Knicks gave up to get Carmelo and start with what this means for the Knicks in the short-term and then the long-term.
Short-Term Analysis For The New York Knicks
The NBA is a superstar driven league. Take a look at the the previous winners of the Larry O'Brien Trophy and you will see a trend developing where the winning team usually possess two to three superstars. The only exceptions to the rule are the 2004 Detroit Pistons and 2006 Miami Heat. Superstars win championships, it is that simple.
There are thirty teams in the NBA, and the New York Knicks now have two of the best fifteen players in the league. That's not a bad place to be. Take it further and the Knicks have two of the ten starters from last week's All-Star Game. Sure, the Knicks can trade NYC's Chinatown to the Rockets for Yao Ming and they can have three of the starters but you get the idea here.
The Carmelo acquisition, in the short-term, makes the Knicks, at the very least, a troubling out for one of big four Eastern conference teams in the first round. Granted there are only twenty eight games left in the season, and it is highly unlikely that any decent attempt at creating chemistry will be successful, but on most nights, the Knicks will have two of the best players on the floor.
Can the Knicks actually make a run in the playoffs this season? Ummm, not very likely at all. While New York might be planning their victory parade, this current reconstruction of the 'Bockers is at best a 2nd round playoff team. The Knicks have no shot at upsetting Boston or Miami in the first round. Both teams have more talent and actually execute defensively to stifle a Mike D'Antoni team. Also, this is the playoffs, defense matters. Name the last time Carmelo or Amare both even attempted a defensive stance. Our best bet is probably in the late 90s.
Chicago, led by MVP candidate Derrick Rose, might be ripe for an upset, but again a lot of things have to go the Knicks way for that to happen. From a position to position breakdown, it is a virtual tie. Both Amare and Carmelo are better than Boozer and Deng, while Rose and Noah dominate Billups and Turiaf. However, again the key is defense and point guard play. And in both these areas the Bulls have a decisive advantage.
So that leaves us with Orlando/Atlanta. In order for that match-up to occur the Knicks have to make up a 5.5 game deficit and grab the fifth position in the East. With twenty-eight games remaining making up that kind of difference is, well not quite impossible, but pretty damn close. So in the short-term the Knicks are a playoff team, as they were before the trade, but now are slightly more likely to put up a fight in the first round than before. Ok, that is progress. Trust me, after ten years of incompetency, I will take progress.
Long-Term Analysis For The New York Knicks
In my humble opinion, this is phase two of the construction of a championship contending New York basketball team. The acquisition of Carmelo Anthony is merely the next step towards grabbing either Chris Paul or Deron Williams in the summer of 2012 or at the trade deadline in 2011. However, do the Knicks even have the assets or cap space to make a run at the point guard they desperately crave?
Let's fast forward to 2011 where Amare is scheduled to make a little less than $20M while Anthony will sign an extension that will pay him a little bit more than $20M. Fantastic there is $40M gone of your available cap space on two players. You still have the expiring salary of Billups at $11.5M, and the contracts of Balkman, Douglas, Fields, and the 2011 first rounder on your books. Forget the rest of the team, they really don't matter. Furthermore, Fields is a restricted free-agent next summer, so he is due for a pay raise as well. Factor into account that the current CBA is going to be renegotiated this summer, and the soft-cap, luxury tax model might be extinct by the time 2012 roles around, well there is definitely no cap space available to sign Paul or Williams outright. What to do, what to do?
Can the Knicks even make an attractive trade offer to New Orleans or Utah before the trade deadline in 2011 to land one of the point guards? The offer would minimally have to include Fields, Billups' expiring contract and some first round draft pick in the future. Is that enough to entice New Orleans or Utah to trade their franchise player? Probably not. However, Williams or Paul could pull an Anthony and tell their respective franchises that they will not resign thus forcing the team to trade them to recoup some assets. However, this might not even matter, if as predicted the NBA creates their own version of the NFL franchise tag thus helping small-market teams from losing their stars.
At the end of the day, the Knicks have positioned themselves more favorably in the long-term to be an attactive landing spot for one of the big free agents in 2012, either Deron Williams or Chris Paul. Basically, the Knicks are close to creating their own big three.
What Did The Knicks Give Up
Raymond Felton, Wilson Chandler, Danilo Gallinari, Timothy Mozgov, Anthony Randolph and Eddy Curry all departed New York last night bound for either Denver or Minnesota. Let's get the Minnesota trade out of the way first. because it is easy.
Minnesota basically received a talent upgrade by taking Anthony Randolph from the Knicks in exchange for Corey Brewer. Randolph is a talented and young forward who has yet to receive the playing time necessary to accelerate his growth. It is a great gamble for the Wolves because they managed to get rid of a small forward who could neither shoot or rebound for a player with more upside and potential. The Knicks needed to dump Eddy Curry's contract in order to create the cap space to acquire Anthony and Billups. As for Corey Brewer, as mentioned earlier he can neither shoot or rebound, awesome. So he becomes a defensive specialist for a team that doesn't really play defense. Umm, yeah he is going to be stuck on the bench.
Ok, the plan all along for the New York Knicks was Carmelo Anthony this year and one of the point guards next year. Keep this in mind, while we go through the trade.
Wilson Chandler was always going to be included in the deal, this is at the very least the starting point for negotiations between Denver and New York. Even if Carmelo Anthony was going to sign with the Knicks in the off-season the Knicks would have to renounce the rights to Chandler to create the necessary cap space. At the end of the day, Wilson Chandler and Carmelo Anthony would never be Knicks at the same time. This was always expected from Day 1.
Raymond Felton was signed to a two-year deal this past off-season as a stop gap until the Knicks would be able to grab either Paul or Williams in the summer of 2012. In the first part of the season Raymond Felton was an all-star, no doubt about it. He was the third best point guard in the East behind Rondo and Rose. He was establishing career highs in scoring, assists and shooting percentage while playing in D'Antoni's run and gun offense. However, over the past month and a bit, his numbers were deteriorating and trending back down to his career averages. This is in fact a downward trend for a point guard supposedly in the prime of his career playing in a system that favors point guards. Felton had lost his mojo. So the Knicks managed to trade Felton, a player they signed for $15M for two years in the off-season without any competition, for a point guard, Billups, albeit eight years older, whose contact also expires in the 2012.
The downside towards acquiring Chauncy Billups is pure and simple, he is overrated. I'm sorry, but he is old, 34, and his offensive game favors a slow it down half court offensive system. Just perfect for D'Antoni, a coach that prefers his point guard to push the ball and create fast break opportunities for his athletic wings and bigs. You know what also scares me, Billups propensity to shoot the most ridiculous three-pointers in the history of basketball. It is going to be the second week of April in the playoffs and I am going to be going through my third TV because this fool is going to step back and take three-pointers with 18-20 seconds left on the shot clock in the fourth quarter of Game 5 against the Bulls. Watch it, this is going to happen.
However, at the end of the day Felton was never going to be a Knick past 2012. While trading him for an overrated point guard scares me tremendously and might cause harm to my television, it still is the right move if the plan all along is to acquire Williams or Paul.
I only have one thing to say about Mr. Timothy Mozgov. Please remember, no one knew him prior to this summer where he played tremendously well for Russia in the World Championships. Furthermore, I feel bad for Mozgov because now he has more chances to get Blakified in the near future. See the picture below for the evidence of getting Blakified.
So that leaves us with The Rooster, Danilo Galinari. I will be honest with you, I love The Rooster, pure and simple. I got nothing but love for him. Screaming 'Rooster' at your TV, has to be one of the craziest yet exhilarating things you can do. Routinely dropping 55-65 points per game on NBA Live using Danilo is not merely a glitch in the video game, but a sense of accomplishment because if video game Danilo can do it, then damn straight real-life Danilo can certainly do it.
Every night I watched the New York Knicks, which is rare when you live in Toronto and where basketball coverage goes to die, I cheered my hardest for Gallo. Just a simple sidenote about basketball coverage in Canada, but during the All-Star Game last Sunday, TSN cut from the MVP presentation to show hockey highlights. I just wanted to throw that in there. Now back to the over the top loving of The Rooster.
Maybe it was the fact that I had a massive man-crush on him or that he was European, but Gallo was my guy. This is where the trade gets hard for me, because Gallo gave his heart and soul to New York. He competed every night trying to win the adoration and love from the fans in the Garden. He knew he was never going to be the greatest shooter of all-time, like D'Antoni declared in his rookie season, or the next coming of Dirk Nowitzki, but he left everything on the floor every night. And that is why he will be missed, not only in New York but especially in a condo in downtown Toronto.
Final Thoughts
At the end of the day, the trade of Carmelo Anthony to the New York Knicks is a no-brainer. It had to happen because you do not win championships without superstars. This is a good trade for New York and can become a great trade for them if it leads to Chris Paul or Deron Williams. Although, I have shed some tears for The Rooster, I am excited and am no longer ashamed to say that I am a fan of the New York Knicks. Now if we can somehow get rid of Isiah and Dolan . . . . well that's a different story.
No comments:
Post a Comment