The Golden State Warriors reportedly were ready to trade Al Harrington for Kirk Hinrich, but John Paxson farted around and Hinrich got injured. Since Harrington was fully integrated into New York's lineup, he has averaged 26.1 PPG and 6.3 RPG. The rebounding isn't what you want out of one of your bigs, but given we aren't getting that out of our bigs at the time being, or defense for that matter, it doesn't matter. That type of offensive talent would have made the current team much more potent, and it would have made us players for 2010, while still being able to retain Ben Gordon. Unfortunately, Paxson sat on his hands.
I remember suggesting that the Bulls sign both Gooden and Harrington as free agents instead of using the cap space on Ben Wallace and Adrian Griffin. The two signed for a combined $18M if I remember right. Probably would have had to pay another $1M for Gooden to keep Cleveland from matching.
If Harrington can play like that with the Knicks then imagine what he could do as a Bull with Derrick Rose getting him wide opened shots...even though the Knicks lost, he played very well. I still value Kirk because he can play despite the inconsistency he's shown; but seeing Harrington play last night made me imagine what we could have done with him as a starter and teammate. Harrington is like Dirk...a big that can shoot. I don't know how he is defensively though.
D'Antoni stats are pretty meaningless. The Knicks have 7 players and Harrington happens to be the best one.
He's still substnatially better than any of the crap we have in the front court, and he expires in 2010 to boot.
Gooden is better than he is. Harrington is a much more athletic Noc. He's an undersized four who can spread the floor with deep shooting. And Harrington doesn't play much more defense than Noc. So other than trading Noc and somebody for him, that trade wouldn't make a whole lot of sense, because it would bury the guy with the most heart on the team, not to mention 4 years remaining on his contract deep on the bench. That's not to say I wouldn't trade Noc, I just wouldn't double up on Noc.
How do we know it was Pax waiting around and not Golden State? Though there's definitely a trend of close but no cigars here...
Seems like there were two teams that should have been more than willing to make this deal happen, Mike. The Warriors lost Baron Davis and Pietrus to FA and then Monta Ellis to injury. The Bulls with their glut of guards and need of help in the front court were ideal trading partners. From Pax' POV, he may have wanted to see if Rose could handle regular PT as a rookie and if Thomas and/or Noah panned out better.
