Curry and Lee Together? Works for Blazers, Not for Knicks

Dan’s right that I can see why the scenario Berman discussed in today’s Post would be appealing to Portland. The Blazers have a ton of cap room and including Curry in the deal would devalue Lee. By that I mean, Portland would argue to the Knicks that they shouldn’t have to give up as much talent to get Lee  as they would if they weren’t taking on Curry’s contract as well.

Not only that, but Curry is actually a pretty decent fit on their team (if he ever got healthy enough to contribute). Pryzbilla and Oden have redundant skills. Curry would provide Oden a backup that can score down low in limited minutes giving the Blazers yet another offensive dimension. And he compliments both Lee’s and Aldridge’s skill sets pretty well so Portland’s roster would be even more versatile.

Here’s how the trade might look: Portland gets David Lee and Eddy Curry; Knicks get Joel Pryzbilla, Channing Frye, and Jerryd Bayless.

I have two issues with this deal:

1. As I said, I think it devalues David Lee. While I can see the merit from Portland’s perspective, I’d prefer to see the Knicks extract every ounce of value they can from Lee and dump Curry later in a separate deal for cap space.
2. It doesn’t offer much cap relief. If we’re going to put Curry in a trade with Lee, the deal should eliminate the value of Curry’s contract from the books completely in 2010. Since Pryzbilla’s contract runs past 2010, this trade only eliminates about a one-third of Curry’s contract from the 2010 books. What’s more, Pryzbilla, while a capable rebounder and defender, is an otherwise terrible fit in the Knicks’ system.

All in all, I don’t like this trade and I think the Knicks and Blazers will have to include a third team to make something happen.