If the Knicks insisted on us taking Melo, I'd take him and cut him or retrade him elsewhere. I'd tell Melo this too, so that he would let the trade go through and then would have the opportunity to sign with any team he wants. Granted, in this trade I'd want to match Melo's contract with Turner's/Crabbe's and Leonards, and get value back accordingly. I'd do Harkless, Leonard, Crabbe, Ezeli, #15, and #26 for #8, Melo, and O'Quinn. I'm not sure if New York would do it, but that's what I'd be looking at. Cut Melo and only pay his 1 year remaining of $24M and be off the hook from Leonard and Crabbe in a single year. Wed still have the #20 pick to pursue a guy like Crowder if BOS signs Hayward, or we could attach #20 to Turner and completely clear our salary cap fuckups by next year, where we could have max cap space before resigning Nurkic. Not only would we be able to clear our cap fuckups, but we'd have the 8th pick in the draft. Trading Turner out with #20 would leave the wing cupboard pretty bare, but we'd still have the 8th pick that would be capable of playing minutes right away (it could be Smith, Monk, Isaac, who knows). We'd need two more wings, but we could sign guys like Sefelosha, Evans, etc. Melo is a bad NBA player. Poor defender, doesn't pass, isn't an efficient scorer and is already declining. I guess we could try to reroute Melo with Turner in that trade where: We get: 8th Pick, O'Quinn NYK Gets: 15th pick, 26th pick, Harkless, Crabbe, Leonard Team 3 Gets: 20th pick, Turner, Melo Where Team 3 promises to cut Melo. Team 3 could be Brooklyn, Miami (who Melo might want to play for), Sacremento, or any other team with $40-$50M in cap space.
JEEZ! You have us trading: THREE 1st round picks PLUS Harkless PLUS Crabbe PLUS Turner and Meyers And all we get in return is #8 and mediocre-as-shit O'Quinn? I don't like Crabbe, Turner, or Meyers, but c'mon! [shakes head in disgust]
I don't think you're exactly representing this trade fairly. It should be: "You have us trading: THREE 1st round picks PLUS Harkless and all we get in return is #8, O'Quinn and dumping the contracts of Crabbe, Turner and Meyers?" I'm not sure whether I'd do that deal, but putting Crabbe, Turner and Meyers on the "assets we lose" side rather than the "liabilities Knicks take off our hands" side is unreasonable, IMO. Harkless and O'Quinn aren't that dissimilar. Harkless is probably a bit more valuable being younger, but meh. So it's mostly three first round picks for the #8 and a ton of salary albatrosses gone. It's at least close to fair.
Look at it this way: we're trading 15/20 for 8, "drafting" O'Quinn with 26, and undoing every signing from last summer. Would you sign on for that?
Uh, yeah. You've left us with a roster that basically consists of: Dame (no trade) CJ (no trade) Nurk (no trade) Vonleh (ok value as both player and trade bait) Aminu (not worth much either as a player or trade bait) Davis (not worth much either as a player or trade bait) O'Quinn (not worth much as a player or trade bait) One draft pick (who knows what their worth will be as a player or trade bait) A bunch of 3rd stringers. And how much cap space did you create? Like, $10-15M? So we don't have much money to replace the rotation players you traded away, and even if it's more than $15M we aren't an attractive destination for Free Agents so it's unlikely we'd sign anyone better than the players you traded away. And rather than having THREE draft picks to fill out the roster we now have ONE. And we don't have any more players to make trades with, so we can't improve the roster via an unbalanced trade. And the roster is HUGELY worse and more imbalanced than it was before your proposed trade.
Dude, what the fuck? Do you really think that would be the only move if we were set on clearing cap space? For fucks sake. We'd probably trade Davis, Napier, & Aminu and have ~$35M to spend while already having 3 of 5 perimeter players (Lillard, CJ, 8th Draft Pick) 3 of 4 big men (Nurkic, Vonleh, O'Quinn). Signings of short, $8-$16M contracts of players like James Johnson or Amir Johnson at PF, a defender like Sefelosha on the wing, and a big playmaking wing that can already shoot in Tyreke Evans would make is better than last year, give us more flexibility for the future, and help us add a rookie prospect that is better than anyone picked with #15, #20, or #26.
It looks like you have 2/3 of a 3 way trade here What about including chicago? We get :8th mirotic O'Quinn NYK: 15,16, crabbe, portis Chi: Melo
I would, they couldn't compete with Cleveland. The best thing to do is gain young talent for 3-4 years down the road.
I don't think it O'Quinn that Olshey be after in New York I think it would Hermangomez he be after plus the 8th pick. That gives us young backup center and quality young player in the draft.
No, it won't be. NYK values Willy much more than KOQ, and he's their starting C for the future. We already have ours, so there's not enough room for Hernangomez to grow.
So we're right back to where we were last summer, giving mediocre talent HUGE contracts just in the hopes they'll come play here...and even then, the chances are slim that we land more than one mid-tier player. I'm no fan of Turner, but that's the level of player we'd be HOPING to sign. So we've got three good players, one maybe kinda good player in Vonleh, and a mediocre back-up in O'Quinn. Awesome. But that 8th draft pick will TOTALLY be able to fill in for Harkless, Crabbe and Turner...oh, and now Aminu too. (I actually DO think that any of our three draft picks could replace Aminu or Davis. But nobody at #8 is going to fill the void left by 4 rotation players.) Why are any of these guys going to choose to come play with a team that has 3 legitimate NBA players? Maybe we get lucky with one of them, but no way do we get multiple mid-tier Free Agents. A far more prudent approach would be to use the 3 draft picks in what is supposedly a DEEP draft. That gives us three chances at getting a good player, rather than just a single chance. Despite my not liking Crabbe or Turner, they have some value. Rather than giving them away and then HOPING to replace them, it would be smarter to trade them for their replacement. Other teams have their own versions of Crabbe/Turner, and perhaps a simple swap will create a better fit for both teams...or at least for us, who cares about the other team! Failing that, I'm fine with salary-dumping one of them at the deadline - but at this point it's stupid to PAY to trade either of them (or anyone). Harkless is probably our most valuable trade chip. Packaging him with 3 draft picks just to move up to #8 would be a travesty. If he's traded it should be in a package for a better player. Any chance of trading for a good but disgruntled player is going to rely on Harkless/Vonleh plus additional assets depending on the player we're trading for. Without Harkless (and to a lesser extent, Vonleh) we have nothing of value to make a good trade - and trades and the draft are the ONLY way to improve the roster at this point in time.
They signed dwade to a 24mil per year deal last year. That may be your opinion what is the best thing to do but I dont think they are listening to you.
Do you know how many mid-tier free agents are available compared to how many teams have the space to sign them? Other teams versions of Turner and Crabbe are making half the money they are. We won't be able to simply replace them with a simple swap. They have no trade value whatsoever. At #8 you get a guy that has all-star potential that you don't get at #15, #20, or #26. Harkless is a middling role player. On a team full of middling role players, would you rather have 4 middling role players or 1 good player w/ all-star potential? Harkless won't fetch you a good player, and selling low on Vonleh would be extremely dumb. So you want to keep our mediocre players napping absurd amounts of money, trade a combination of our picks, Vonleh, and Harkless for a decent player, and that's it? That's a travesty of a plan.
