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Two Big Trades the Knicks Could Make Before the Deadline
How could New York shape up their roster by the trade deadline?
The NBA Trade Deadline is here, and the Knicks are stuck with a mismatched jigsaw puzzle of a team. Some of their pieces fit into their future. They already have a franchise cornerstone in Kristaps Porzingis, as well as a few players that could potentially function on winning basketball teams (Mindaugas Kuzminskas, Willy Hernangomez, Kyle O’Quinn, Courtney Lee, Ron Baker).
But sitting at the top of their payroll are pieces of the past, former MVPs and aging stars.
It’s a Catch-22. To get rid of dead cap weight — Carmelo Anthony is due over $53 million over the next two seasons, Derrick Rose is on a $21 million expiring contract and reportedly wants a $150 million max deal this summer — teams are going to ask for some of their keepers. Phil Jackson, President of Basketball Operations, will have to strike a tricky balance. Continue to pay guys like Rose and Anthony, and the problems they face today will haunt them for another two or three years (Joakim Noah’s contract, by the way, is virtually untradeable at this point). Porzingis will continue to stall, or even regress as a player, and the Knicks won’t have enough cap space to build around him. But try too hard to move Rose and Anthony, and you risk gutting the roster too much.
So what can Jackson do? He doesn’t want to take 50 cents on the dollar.
I think it’s possible for the Knicks to move forward without starting over, and I’ve broken down a few trades that don’t involve moving any of New York’s blue-chip talent. Here’s how the Knicks can, if they want to, rid themselves of Rose and Anthony’s contract without blowing up their core.
Why the Knicks make the offer
Way too many New York possessions end like this:
The Knicks dump the ball to Carmelo at the elbow, who jab-steps a few thousand times before kicking the ball out to Rose at the top of the key. Rose dribbles the clock down to about eight seconds, glances off Porzingis in the corner, who’s just standing still ready to catch-and-shoot. Rose then takes two hard dribbles into the teeth of the defense and hurls a line-drive floater from eight feet out over the long-arms of a seven-footer.
The Knicks would like Porzingis to do more than stand in the corner. Unicorns aren’t meant to be decoys. And Payton, a pass-first speed demon with decent feel for the game, is a natural fit alongside Porzingis. Think a poor man’s version of Rajon Rondo and Kevin Garnett during their Celtics championship run. A pure distributor with a super-versatile, athletic big. Rose-for-Rubio rumors are hot right now, but I actually like this Orlando package more.
Why the Magic accept
No way Orlando says yes if Rose isn’t on a monster expiring contract, but he is, and Orlando desperately needs an identity. After trading away Serge Ibaka, who they just signed last summer to be a franchise building block for them, they’re now stuck with a bunch of intriguing players that combine to create awful basketball (like the Knicks!). Who are they building around? Not Nikola Vucevic, whose crafty face-up game is completely undone by his matador rim protection. Not Payton, who can’t score to save his life. Aaron Gordon and Evan Fournier are probably the Magic’s best players, but you can’t really shape an offense around either of them. The Magic probably need a hard reset, and renting out Rose might be the least painful way to do so.
Rose is 60 percent of what he was in 2010. He doesn’t have the same vertical explosiveness or top speed, but his supernatural quickness and body control are still there to some extent. Most importantly, Rose has only missed nine out of 57 games this year. He’s not spectacular anymore, but he’s more reliable than he’s been in years.
And the Magic can build an offense around him, at least for now. Rose is on an enormous expiring contract, which means he can keep the Magic’s offense afloat until they find a long-term answer in free agency. Put him in endless pick-and-pops with Vucevic. Let him run the break with Gordon. A Rose-led Magic team might not win a lot more than whatever the hell they have now. But it’s going to be a lot more stable on a night-to-night basis, barring any freak injury (*knock on wood*).
Why the Knicks make the offer
Carmelo peaked as a basketball player in 2012. He put up 28 points a night, played hard-nosed defense against much bigger forwards nearly every night and, for the first time, really accepted his role as an unstoppable small-ball power forward. The league had no answer that season for his combination of shooting, quickness and size. He even facilitated well out of the high post, something we’ve rarely seen from him since.
Carmelo is still a very good scorer. He had a brutal stretch earlier in the season when his shooting bottomed out to around 30 percent from the field, but since then he has recovered. The guy can still flat-out win games when he gets hot. But most of the all-around presence he showed in 2012 is gone. He’s like a baseball DH now, offering a very specialized but important service for his team.
$24.5 million for three years is too much to pay a DH in basketball. Especially when the Knicks have a young talent they want to unleash like Porzingis. It’s not so much that Carmelo is directly hindering Porzingis’ growth, although that is the case to an extent. The big problem is Carmelo’s cap hold. With him on the Knicks’ salary, it’s very hard for them to bring in those mid-tier pieces that flesh out a roster. We’re talking about those uber-valuable J.J. Redick and Jae Crowder-type contracts, where teams get way more than what they paid for. The Knicks can’t pay for anything with the way their roster is right now.
But Jackson can’t just clear cap space. He has to get something back for Carmelo, or the Knicks fanbase will riot and the franchise will sink into an even deeper rut. Enter: Otto Porter. He’s 23, is a dead-eye shooter and can guard four positions (an insanely valuable trait in today’s NBA). He can help the team immediately and fits into the bigger picture. Ian Mahinmi is also an above-average rotation big.
Why the Wizards accept
Honestly, they probably don’t. Otto Porter is nine years younger than Carmelo, and with the John Wall/Bradley Beal backcourt finally coming into its own, the Wizards probably don’t want to mess with their chemistry. Adding Carmelo means figuring out how to divvy up touches yet again, and it warps the floor spacing a little although ‘Melo is a much better all-around scorer than Porter. ‘Melo is also the far inferior defender at this point.
But the Wizards have a chance this season, and I think they’re still missing the X-factor every team needs in the playoffs. We see it every year; a feisty up-and-coming team pushes a contender to the brink, only for their young stars to go cold in the deciding game of the series. This is where guys like Manu Ginobili come in handy. It’s part of the reason Golden State shelled out big money for Andre Iguodala and Andrew Bogut once upon a time. It’s the only reason the Wizards signed Paul Pierce in 2014. I still think Carmelo can be that guy.
Imagine it’s Game 7 of the Eastern Conference playoffs between the Wizards and the Cavs, who are a little vulnerable with a hobbled Kevin Love. The Wiz are down five with three minutes to go, but Wall and Beal have gone cold and Washington’s offense has stalled out. Isn’t it invaluable to have a guy like Carmelo to give the ball to in isolation and trust that he’ll get you a bucket? Turns out it really pays off to have a DH. Just ask Boston Red Sox fans how they feel about David Ortiz.
Here’s what I don’t think will happen. I don’t think, although there’s been a lot of buzz over the past few days, that Carmelo gets traded to the Celtics or the Clippers. It just doesn’t really make sense for the Celtics. They already have their DH in Isaiah Thomas, and he’s flat out better than Carmelo at this point (plus he’s four years younger). ‘Melo to the Clippers has been a rumor for years, but who do they move for him? Blake Griffin? DeAndre Jordan? Chris Paul? J.J. Redick? Those guys are all more valuable than Carmelo.
I also don’t think the Timberwolves swap Ricky Rubio for Rose. It makes sense from a front office standpoint. Rose’s expiring gives Minnesota space to sign a big free agent this summer, and adding a player like Rose with a net-negative impact on the court will only boost the Wolves tank campaign for a draft class loaded with guard prospects. But Tom Thibodeau does not tank, and he’s got the type of all-encompassing control over the franchise that Stan Van Gundy and Doc Rivers have in Detroit and Los Angeles, respectively. Minnesota’s current issue is their awful defense, and subtracting Rubio, who is a good defender, for Rose, who is a terrible defender, will make them worse. I can’t see Thibs consciously make his team worse.
Carmelo, who has a no-trade clause, recently told media that the Knicks haven’t approached him with any potential suitors. In all likelihood, the Knicks stand pat with the roster they have now. The market just isn’t that deep for ‘Melo or Rose, and it’s nonexistent for Noah. But they’ll eventually need to restructure their team around Porzingis, and the clock is ticking.
The 2017 NBA Trade Deadline is Thursday, February 23 at 3 pm ET.
— Harrison Liao, site writer
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