The silly season gets sillier by the day. A reasonable, workable trade scenario involving the Knicks and Raptors was floated on Bulls.com by veteran NBA writer Sam Smith -- Stephon Marbury and Eddy Curry to Toronto for Jermaine O'Neal and Anthony Parker. Sounds good. The Knicks get something for Marbury, and J.O.'s monstrous contract comes off the books in time for the 2010 free-agent derby. Only one problem: The Knicks and Raptors haven't discussed a trade in months, according to an executive familiar with both teams' plans.
One thing is clear: Raptors GM Bryan Colangelo is looking to deal. O'Neal isn't fitting in with Toronto, and Colangelo is under tremendous pressure to turn this team around to appease Chris Bosh, who has the all-important player option in 2010. A likely trade chip will be Parker and his $4.6 million expiring contract. Toronto will come up numerous trade scenarios floated and discussed between now and the Feb. 19 deadline, and is all but certain to pull the trigger on something. Just not this one.
Marbury's buyout talks continue to creep forward, but a person with ties to Marbury said he doesn't expect anything to be finalized before January. The Knicks have given Marbury permission to find a deal with another team, but Marbury's representative, Hal Biagas of the NBA Players Association, is playing that side of it close to the vest.
There will be no trade market for Curry, on the books for $31.5 through 2010-11, until he gets on the floor and plays. He hasn't logged a minute since preseason due to a knee injury.
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I'm not exactly wanting Jermaine due to his injuries and for the simple fact that his body can't handle the nightly abuse. However, we might be able to dump a bad contract, and free ourselves of a year on someone like Eric Dampier's contract. Bryan Colangelo is still very difficult to deal with and probably destroys our front office with any trade.