Speculation abounds that the reason the Charlotte Bobcats dealt Jason Richardson to the Phoenix Suns in exchange for Raja Bell and Boris Diaw (and pushed to consummate the trade so quickly) is because they wanted Bell and Diaw to be eligible to be moved to the Knicks in a second trade before the deadline. The latest version of this rumor appeared in Tuesday’s edition of the New York Daily News where Frank Isola wrote:
The Knicks have made no secret that trading Curry would enhance their prospects of signing two major free agents in the summer of 2010. Charlotte has expressed interest in Curry, and people close to the Knicks center say that he would welcome a change of address.
“I don’t know what’s going to happen,” Curry said. When asked about the Bobcats, Curry only said, “I enjoyed playing for Larry (Brown) when he was here.”
Two weeks ago, Charlotte acquired Boris Diaw and Raja Bell from Phoenix, and the thinking among some NBA executives is that both players will eventually be shipped to New York in a deal for Curry and possibly David Lee.
I’m confident that Mr. Isola’s information regarding the Knicks’ interest in Bell and Diaw is solid. In :07 Seconds or Less, Jack McCallum’s very good book that recounts his experience as a fly on the wall with the 2005/2006 Phoenix Suns, he observed that Mike D’Antoni was particularly fond of these two players. D’Antoni believed that Bell’s toughness was crucial to the Suns ability to defeat the Lakers in the playoffs and he felt that Diaw’s skill set made him an ideal forward in his system. Now, since that season Bell has slipped a bit with age and Diaw has been unable to reprise his brilliance from that year, but I don’t doubt that they’d be good additions that would help the Knicks win more games. The question is, at what cost?
It seems clear that the Bobcats want to give it a go with Eddy Curry. Larry Brown has some experience with him and he seems to think, as is his wont, if he can get a hold of one of his players that he failed to connect with in the last go around, that his current team will improve markedly. Personally, I’m skeptical.
Perhaps more importantly, though, the Bobcats have also decided that Emeka Okafor is not a center. And Eddy’s ability to score down low would seem complement Okafor’s limited, mid-range game nicely.
From a pure basketball standpoint, I really don’t have any issue with trading Curry for Bell and Diaw. Even when Eddy returns to the lineup, he’s unlikely to be able to give the Knicks very much because (no matter how the Knicks try to spin it) his skills aren’t going to translate to this style of play. Bell would give the Knicks some needed toughness and shooting and Diaw’s passing alone makes him valuable. I still don’t love the trade, though.
The problem is that Curry for Bell and Diaw doesn’t work under the salary cap. While Curry and Diaw are an even salary exchange (though Diaw’s deal goes one year longer), Bell’s dollars aren’t accounted for. So other players need to be included. And if, as Mr. Isola suggested, one of those players is David Lee, well…that’s just the height of insanity.
I believe that Lee is a uniquely valuable player (more on this in a later post) and, as I’ve said before, you can’t squander his trade value in a deal where you’re exchanging albatross contracts. If the Knicks aren’t getting D.J. Augustin or the Bobcats 1st round pick in this trade, then you can’t give them Lee. Period.
So what should the Knicks do? If D’Antoni feels he must have these guys, then the Knicks should pursue one of the following two scenarios in this order:
- Trade Curry and Jared Jeffries for Bell and Diaw. LB is an unabashed Jeffries admirer and he urged Isaiah to sign him to that disastrous, full mid-level deal. It’s entirely possible that he still likes Jeffries and views him as a useful piece. Best of all, this trade works under the cap and gives the Knicks roughly an extra $6 million or so in cap space in 2010. It’s a win-win-win (the third win is because I also win).
- Package Curry with a cap exception for Bell and Diaw. At the moment the Knicks have two trade exceptions for Renaldo Balkman and Mardy Collins that total roughly $2.5 million. Additionally, as I discussed in yesterday’s post, the Knicks expect to receive a $4.5 million disabled player exception as compensation for Cuttino Mobley’s sudden retirement. For all intents and purposes, a trade like this would be a salary wash and the Knicks would be improved. The cost in this deal, though, would be the lost opportunity to have used the exception in a different trade or traded Curry in a deal that got the Knicks some added relief for 2010.
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As an aside, it turns out that, while Farmar and Phil Jackson had not been getting along, that isn’t the reason he hadn’t appeared in the Lakers’ last two games. Farmar has suffered a knee injury that’s going to sideline him for 8 weeks.
