moocow007 wrote:Stannis wrote:Chanel Bomber wrote:Walsh also got scared and half-assed his own plan by not clearing enough capspace for 3 max free agents. Riley did at the buzzer, and got what the Knicks wanted. Probably would’ve ended up with Amar’e and Joe Johnson in that scenario anyway.
How much more cap-space could they have cleared?
tbh, I'm surprised Knicks created the space they did at the time. Dumping ZBo and Ja without giving up assets was pretty decent. They both weren't sought after playing for the Knicks. Not many teams wanted them. It took them some time for them to find their niche.
Jarred Jeffries was hard to trade. I forgot the move, but there was rumors of trading Nate Robinson with Jeffries to shed some space back in 08-09 season I believe. They did not, and panicked later on for the McGracy deal in the 09-10 season.
Eddy Curry was un-tradeable unless we had two first round picks to offer (I don't think we did). So are you saying he should have tried packaged Gallo+Willy to dump Curry? That would have been interesting but I still don't think a team takes that trade.
I'm not sure if David Lee had any value either.
I think two stars was the only realistic option.
Heat only had to shed Michael Beasley's contract who was still young, serviceable, and only at 4.5 million. Knicks had 11 million in deadweight.
The Heat traded former no.1 overall pick Michael Beasley who, at the time, looked like he was about the take the next step into starhood for basically nothing. So it costs. But it was easy for them to do this cause by most reports Lebron had already decided on Miami by that point.
So it wasn't so much about moving assets to land a top 5 all time talent, it was about doing all the other things behind the scenes to make sure that you were assured that you can afford to give all those assets up.
Put it this way, if the Knicks were guaranteed by Lebron that he's coming but that they needed to clear space for another max slot, they'd have assuredly included as many 1st round picks as they needed to move Jeffries or Curry. That they didn't was a sign that maybe Walsh heard something through the grapevine that Riley had already gotten Lebron (not impossible since Walsh is a old timer and had a lot of people in a lot of front offices and player agencies that he's worked with and had good relationships with that could have heard and decided to do Walsh a good one...that was probably the one benefit of Walsh over some other guy that didn't have enough heft to do what Riley did).
No, I agree and I’m quite firmly anti-free agency plans, so I don’t necessarily criticize Walsh for showing restraint at the last minute (based on his intel as you mentioned). But you look at the big picture and after 2 years of salary dumps the Knicks didn’t even have enough capspace to achieve their own goal, which Miami executed instead. That is very telling about our lack of assertiveness in the market and, in and of itself, is a failure. The whole plan was a disaster waiting to happen anyway.
Chandler would’ve probably helped dump Curry’s salary but fans and the organization alike truly overrated his talent back in the day. A lot of people thought he was a long-term piece and were emotionally invested in him, hence reluctant to part with him.
Again, I’m against all of that. I think we should’ve built through the draft and tanked (at least build around youth) instead of trying to remain competitive to entice free agents to come here. But we failed miserably in 2010 and we failed miserably 9 years later. This is not about Bill Simmons spewing BS because he’s supposedly obsessed with the Knicks. This is all about the Knicks embarrassing themselves in free agency twice in the same decade.