After a disappointing start to the season, the New York Knicks’ front office has to be figuring out their best path forward. While winning now and winning later are not necessarily mutually exclusive, having a clear priority between the two becomes necessary when evaluating all but easy decisions about constructing the team.
While the Knicks are capped out for 2014-15 regardless of what happens with Carmelo Anthony thanks to the final seasons on current contracts for Amar'e Stoudemire, Tyson Chandler and Andrea Bargnani, New York looks to have plenty of financial flexibility in the summer of 2015. As of now, the only players on the ledger are J.R. Smith and Raymond Felton’s player options, Pablo Prigioni’s partially guaranteed deal, and Tim Hardaway Jr’s first team option on his rookie contract. With all but Hardaway Jr. expiring that season, 2016 has even clearer books as of now. Of course, any deals added between now and then will likely run that far and thus reduce the space they can work with.
New York unquestionably has a few major advantages in the current CBA landscape. While the individual max contract may have been designed for other aims, the functional result has actually been advantageous to major markets since they can offer more off-court money/fame opportunities and the on-court money has to be almost the same. Those factors coupled with the aura of New York City culturally provide the Knicks with plenty of reasons to have high hopes with cap space when they have it. While the assembled group from 2010-2011 has disappointed in terms of results, much of that can be attributed to the horrendous decision to give Amar'e his huge non-insured contract.
The lesson of that Amar'e deal should be that teams with advantageous situations and the flexibility to wait absolutely should do so if necessary in order to maximize their peak. Miami got almost all their pieces in one summer while Houston built brilliantly over the course of years in a process that ended up netting James Harden and Dwight Howard.
Unfortunately for the Knicks, they will not be able to have every piece of information before making decisions that will affect the long-term ceiling of the team. Carmelo Anthony’s upcoming opt-out and free agency forces a part of their hand in 2014 since any contract they sign him to takes up space that cannot be used on other players in 2015 and beyond. That does not mean necessarily that the team should not re-sign Anthony- rather it means they need to assess what signing him to the inevitable max contract he expects makes the most sense for the franchise moving forward.
Carmelo Anthony turns 30 before hitting free agency, so the likely four-year deal (with a potential player option for a fifth if he re-signs) covers his age 30-33 seasons. While we never know exactly how an individual will age, it stands to reason that Anthony will not be better over the course of his next contract than he has been the last few years with the possibility of downside based on aging and/or injury just like for anyone else. At this point, we have a pretty good idea what Carmelo is and thus do not need to spend a ton of time debating it.
Instead, the pivotal question should be simple to state and potentially hard to answer: Can the Knicks do better than a 30-33 year old Carmelo Anthony for their No. 1 or No. 2 player for the next four years and beyond?
Without a definitive answer one way or the other due to the unpredictable nature of free agency and the continually changing landscape of the league, the answer in all likelihood should be yes.
Since elite Restricted Free Agents simply do not change addresses in the current CBA, it makes sense to focus on unrestricted players.
The 2015 free agent class should include Kevin Love, Brook Lopez (player option), Marc Gasol, Roy Hibbert (player option), LaMarcus Aldridge, Rudy Gay (if he picks up his player option) and Rajon Rondo.
The 2016 class should include Kevin Durant, Joakim Noah, Dwight Howard (player option), Al Horford, Mike Conley, Deron Williams (player option- possible he picks it up), Ryan Anderson, OJ Mayo, Brandon Jennings, Thaddeus Young (player option) and Eric Gordon (if he picks up his player option).
While Carmelo plays offense well (particularly as a scorer though he has been underrated as a passer), he will not become an all-around player overnight after turning 30. On top of that, his role as a ball-dominant scorer makes adding a wide variety of other elite talents a more difficult proposition that parallels the problems the Los Angeles Lakers have had wooing high end guys to play with Kobe Bryant after Shaquille O'Neal's departure since those guys will not have the ball as much as they would like. Considering the wealth of talent that could be available to woo in 2015 and 2016, the Knicks can have a reasonable expectation to have a one-two punch that yields a better team than one with Carmelo Anthony filling one of those two spots.
In some ways the factor that looms even larger over the question of having Anthony as the No. 1 or No. 2 Knick for the next four-plus years is the fact that a team with him as a top-two player cannot be reasonably considered a true championship contender in a league with other top-heavy franchises. There are very few franchise-changing talents that could make this true (I can think of two off-hand) and I doubt having Anthony on the team makes them more likely to become Knicks.
Since Anthony appears wholly unlikely to take a substantial pay cut necessary to become the third-best player on this team, especially when necessary to do before the other pieces are at MSG, the question becomes what to do over the next year.
If the Knicks makes the correct decision that he should not be a key part of their future, there are three potentially relevant time periods to consider:
1. From now until the trade deadline- The Knicks could trade Anthony to another team that likely would expect to retain him on a new contract after the season. Ideally, the Knicks would focus on long-term assets and avoid reducing their cap flexibility for 2015 and 2016 for everything but a special offer.
2. Next summer- The Knicks could either let Anthony walk or try to engineer a sign-and-trade to a team under the apron. Considering the current CBA rules on sign-and-trades, that seems like an unlikely option particularly with New York’s desire to keep money off the books for 2015-16 and 2016-17.
3. After next summer- What I refer to as the “Nene Special” – signing a player without the intention of keeping him for the duration of his contract. Certainly possible but a dangerous game because of factors like injury or poor performance.
If I were the decision-maker for the Knicks, I would be focusing on the first time period because it has the least risk and potentially the greatest return. Under previous CBA’s, a sign-and-trade would have been an interesting option but the limitation to teams under the luxury tax apron and the fact that Anthony cannot get more money that way undercuts the team pool and their leverage. While hard to answer firmly without a clear understanding of his trade value in the immediate, deciding that Carmelo Anthony does not make sense as one of the Knicks’ top two over the next four years makes a more immediate trade the best path to take. Even though that could make the Knicks worse this year yielding a benefit in draft position they cannot reap since Denver has it unprotected, a likely larger return in terms of assets could tip the balance. While making this season worse could be a little hard for Knicks fans to swallow, the vision necessary to make the decision and the intestinal fortitude to make the move would send a clear sign that the Knicks see themselves as a championship organization with the willingness to sacrifice to make it happen.
