Grading The Deal: Carmelo Decides To Stay With New York
The New York Knicks have agreed to re-sign Carmelo Anthony to a five-year, full max deal worth more than $122 million.
Some people will criticize Carmelo for taking the money, but I will not be one of them. I will never rip a player for taking the largest offer possible as long as they do not complain if things do not go well or claim to be “all about winning.”
While having an opt out that coincides with what should be an increase in his max due to a change in the cap with the new national TV deal could end up being more lucrative, there would be a substantial risk there and the fully guaranteed salary here should do just fine with no downside. By virtue of this deal, Melo will be paid like an elite player until his 35th birthday.
Grade for Carmelo Anthony: A+
For the Knicks, this comes down to the concept of opportunity cost. In economics, opportunity costs describe the loss of a gain from an alternative when another option is chosen, typically the best other choice available.
While Carmelo has been and should continue to be a very good basketball player, the Knicks could have done better with their money over the next few seasons. Unfortunately for the players, a soft cap means that spending money on one player directly reduces their ability to get more quality talent. In a major market and a popular city among players, cap space has more value for the Knicks than possibly every other NBA franchise. Even as the Knicks floundered around with often-mocked ownership and failure on the court, they still got meetings with just about every high-level free agent, which says quite a bit.
The next few seasons will have a shockingly large amount of elite talent hit unrestricted free agency for the first time. What’s more, two of the four major market teams look to be out of the unrestricted free agent mix for the next few summers and the third carries a big contract to Kobe Bryant who we cannot expect to be able to play at his previous level of dominance at this point. The Knicks had the catbird seat for a group of players from Kevin Love and Marc Gasol in 2015 to Kevin Durant in 2016 to Stephen Curry, Russell Wesbrook and Joakim Noah in 2017. Each of those players should hit the open market and would at least listen to the Knicks.
My problem with New York maxing Carmelo is that I do not think his presence makes bringing one or more of those young stars onto the Knicks more likely. If we operate under the assumption that players on the wrong side of their prime will be at least a little worse each season, even those high on Melo should agree that most if not all of the above list should eclipse him in the next few seasons. We learned from Miami’s success that an open ledger can be incredibly alluring and the Knicks gave up a combination of that, an even more glamorous city, and Phil Jackson, a luminary young players like Love, Durant and Westbrook grew up watching win championships. Was it a lock that the Knicks would get two or more guys on that list? Of course not. That said, I think they would have had a respectable shot at it.
Maxing out Carmelo now also functionally eliminates the chance of adding a key piece through the draft. While Miami made their big three through free agency, having one young star on a rookie scale contract is the best way to create and maintain a championship level team with ownership willing to go into the luxury tax year after year. After all, think about what the Knicks could have done with Oklahoma City’s young core. Even though the Knicks would have missed out on free agents this summer, clearing the decks for 2015 would have had the ancillary benefit of creating an opportunity to bottom out and add a long-term asset in a draft where the team actually has their own pick unencumbered. Now the road to a title will take even more good fortune.
The best counterargument to this line of thinking would come from an assertion that the Knicks could trade Carmelo down the line if better options show an interest in coming as free agents. That logic carries some weight since many franchises could do a lot worse with their money than Melo- heck, some have already this month.
One way of thinking about this is to imagine what the market could be for Carmelo’s contract each year in the future when he has more than $100 million remaining at 31 next summer, about $80 million at 32 in 2016, just under $60 million in 2017, and that huge contract just under $30 million at the age of 34 in 2018.
While that combination of player and contract may be seen as an asset by some teams, it would not be a clear sale for many others. Moving the most expensive contract in the league takes substantially more doing than smaller contracts like Jeremy Lin and Richard Jefferson the past few summers.
Despite Anthony’s status as a famous and talented player, a franchise in a massive market should have understood the gigantic advantages given to them in the current Collective Bargaining Agreement and aimed higher to build a championship foundation.
Grade for the Knicks: D
