New York Daily News has this interesting item on Stephon Marbury's desire to be reunited with Kevin Garnett -- in New York. Of course, what GM or player wouldn't want to add Garnett to their team, should the T-Wolves decide to trade him? But as the Daily News piece makes clear, the Knicks don't have a lot to offer. Their lottery pick this year belongs to Chicago, and their best young player (Channing Frye) is out with a torn knee ligament. Which leads me to this question, which I believe I've asked before -- what teams besides Boston have a combo of young players, big contracts, and draft picks that might entice the Wolves to give up Garnett? For example, the C's could offer Raef LaFrentz, Gerald Green, Al Jefferson and (the resurgent) Tony Allen, plus picks. Of course, that would only be palatable for the T-Wolves if they were committed to rebuilding from scratch. So what else is out there? Have any of the big NBA writers done anything on this?
By the way, here are my favorite Marbury quotes from the piece:
"I would say that playing back with Kevin, that would be something that would be talked about forever."
and
"As far as basketball, I haven't had that much success as far as winning."
Right on.
3 comments:
Of course, that would only be palatable for the T-Wolves if they were committed to rebuilding from scratch.
I think you're right that if the TWolves trade Garnett they will have to be committed to a complete gut rehab, since KG is currently the only worthwhile player on the team.
If they make this decision then the three things they'll be looking for in a deal, in some order, will be
1) expiring contracts that clear out their salary cap
2) draft picks and good prospects on rookie deals
3) someone who will take the lousy, long-term deals they accepted while trying to build a team around KG.
The third includes Troy Hudson (4yrs, $28M), Marko Jaric (5yrs,$35M), and Mark Blount (4yrs,$32M). Trenton Hassell and Ricky Davis are also making more than rookie wages but are reasonable value for the money.
As I look around at other teams, here's the thing: the Knicks might be in a better position than any other team to offer #1 and #3. They have ~$28M in total expiring contracts in the forms of Jalen Rose and Mo Taylor. Ownership has made it clear they will pay any amount of the luxury tax, so they can take on several of Minny's lousy deals and park them on the end of the bench or cut them outright.
They have all their future #1 picks after this year (I believe) and while Frye's out for a couple of months he's a great young player and only 22.
I'm running into a meeting so don't have time to go into other teams. You're right that their picks and young players may be better than the Knicks. I don't think any have the expiring contracts and willingness to take on bad deals that New York does.
Great topic.
RE: Knicks and T-Wolves
Agreed that the Knicks can certainly take contracts and give expiring deals. And maybe they can even give back some young talent in Frye or picks. The question is would the T-Wolves want that? I say maybe.
The big benefits in such a deal would be: A) the young talent/picks; and B) the cap room. But I think Option B isn't as attractive as Mr. B thinks. Under the new Collective Bargaining Agreement, the already inflated price for free agents is bound to go up. Most very good to excellent players will re-sign with their teams because they can get more money and longer contracts if they do so. In practice, they already do so, without the newest enticements in the new CBA. This will drive up the price for other players as well, meaning that unless you're getting a disgruntled star who just wants out, you've got to overpay. So I'm not sure that getting $28 million under the cap translates into getting a quality replacement (or two or three) to go along with Frye and/or picks. Particularly in a place like Minnesota, which once Garnett leaves, won't have much to offer free agents besides its frigid climate and high tax rate.
Seems to me that if the Knicks were to make a deal with the T-Wolves, the T-Wolves would want either Marbury or Francis, plus expiring contracts, AND either Frye or picks. That way, they'd get some cap relief, get out from some bad deals, have a "franchise" player (both for marketability and for the off chance of attracting free agents), and some young assets too. Which seems like a pretty high price for the Knicks. But who knows?
Lastly, in terms of comparing this Knicks deal (either B's scenario or mine) to the Celtics deal which I outlined in the original post, there's an important distinction to make. Depending on which the T-Wolves chose, they would either be looking to rebuild on the fly (Knicks) or scrap and rebuild (C's). So it's a bit like comparing apples to oranges. But the good news is this: now that we have our baseline options for the two strategies, we can figure out if we like other similar deals (apples to apples, oranges to oranges) by comparing them to these two. So... who's got more trades to propose? And can someone explain to me whether the C's are the apple or the orange in this scenario?
I completely agree with Mmazz that there ain't a lot of talent out there in free agency. This means there's a limited upside to the TWolves using a Knicks deal to empty their roster of veteran commitments in order to make a run at the next Joe Johnson.
There's another potential benefit to gutting the place, though. The TWolves this season, with KG and assorted veterans, are only ten games off the worst record in the league. If they trade KG for expiring contracts, rookie deal talent (Frye, Nate Robinson) and picks they would presumably suck bad enough in the next two years to be in a great position to win the Greg Oden sweepstakes. Call it the ML Carr redux strategy. To pull this off, though, they can't take back Starbury or Francis or anyone else who'd give them worthless short-term wins without any prospect of contributing to the team they're trying to build for 4-5 years down the road.
Any deal with the Celtics or Clippers or Bulls would certainly involve taking back non-expiring contracts like Wally Szczerbiak that would only lower your draft rank in the short term and be gone by the time you're a good playoff team again.
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