art vandelay: this is insane….there are idiots out there like Ian OConnor for espn new york advocating we give up MORE (namely mozgo) now to secure melo!!!total lunacy  

this is going to turn out to be a Plutarchian rape of the sabines before this is over :-)

johnnoWhat matters is what ‘Melo thinks and in his own words, he feels that, if he doesn’t sign an extension now, “I’m screwed.”His perception is his reality, so he will probably blink and sign a deal with the Nets or Nuggets.  

i totally agree and understand melo wants to get extended now, but people in hell want ice water, too. that isn’t the knicks problem.

if melo chooses to stay in denver or sign with the nyets rather than sign with the knicks , so be it. he will live with the consequences and so will the nix. the nix will win 43-45 games this year and likely 45 – 50 next year with just the normal progression of mosgov, chandler, fields, gallo and randolph who are all <24.

plus they will have 15 million under the cap in july with curry, mason and azu expiring. maybe walsh can spend that cap space as well as he did last year with amar'e and felton (a steal @ 7.5 million) should melo decide not to go fa.

if i run the nix, i call melo and denver's bluff and i don't lose a second of sleep if he is not available in july. the nix will still have plenty of options with a good team and 15 million to spend on extra players this summer.

johnno: bobneptune -
Maybe you are right about the new CBA but, then again, maybe you’re not.

no one know what the new cba will look like, but for the new cap to be reduced 10 million revenue to the players would have to drop by 20% and they can never agree to that. never in a million years , so those gloom and doom scenarios are totally unrealistic.

i think the overall point is almost everyone would like to have carmelo, but the question is… at what price.

leave the swap of the point guards out of the equation and for the sake of argument, call it a wash. in a vacuum, as much as i like chandler and gallo, i would trade them for melo in a heartbeat.

however, we don’t operate in a vacuum, we operate in reality. signing melo to the current extension would leave~ 10 million if they strip the roster completely down in 2012. i don’t see how that signs a 3rd big player.

plus, it isn’t gallo and chandler for melo. we have to move randolph to get mn to eat curry’s contract (denver won’t take it even though they could under the cba) and we have to give them a 2014 first round pick.

so, i totality, we have to trade gallo and chandler, trade randolph and a 2014 first round draft choice. we then also in the process give denver $20,000,000 in salary relief this year and next which also saves them 10,000,000 in luxury taxes this year. so we save them 50,000,000 in cash and have to give up the ranch.

plus… now it looks as though denver is waiting for dolan to throw mosgov into the mix.

do we really need to stroke melo that much???

and quite frankly, what happens if we don’t sign melo? the sun still rises tomorrow.

johnno: Depending on what happens with the CBA, he stands to lose somewhere between $10 and $40 million if he doesn’t sign an extension now.

hi johnno,

could you please explain in a star driven and marketed league , how on earth melo could possibly lose 40 million dollars over the next 4 years his new contract will cover???

cliffs notes:

if there is any hard cap in the next cba (and that is highly unlikely) and say a 10 million dollar per year max figure was established, existing contracts would necessarily need to be rolled back, too.

the possibility of losing 40 million or anything near that is a complete straw man argument.

latke: I really don’t criticize the move if you have information that says getting Anthony = significant increase in the possibility of getting Paul or Williams.What I DO criticize is giving away more than you have to.
My new theory is that ‘Melo basically told Dolan that he wants to go to new york, but that he wants the money too, and if they don’t sign him, he’ll consider resigning or accepting a trade to NJ.

this is why nepotism is generally bad. had dolan earned the ceo job at msg rather than have inherited it, he would have immediately responded,” mr carmelo, if the difference between the 83.5 million you can receive being extended and the 77 million you will get as a fa with me is that important to you, have fun spending the rest of your career with brook lopez as your wingman and kris humphey as your 4.”

i mean at what point do you stop giving away assets for a guy you can get for free? i mean we can still sweeten the pot with mosgov, fields and 1st round picks in ’16, ’18, ’20 and’22!

and how are they going to fit a 3rd guy in with melo and amar’e eating 40 million in salaries in 2012? does anyone see one of these egomaniacs like williams, howard or cp3 joining the nix for 10 million a year while their boys are making 20???

that was the genius of riley… he got wade, lebron and bosh to work for 14.5 million each this season so all 3 could fit under the cap.

welcome to 45-50 win teams for the next 4 years, but no chance to win it all…….

IMO, as constituted, this trade makes us better, but still not good enough, comes at a very high cost, and doesn’t leave us a lot of assets to make the necessary improvements.

Furthermore, it’s not a fantasy that we can sign Melo in the offseason as a FA. All we have to do is not make this trade, then see if he really wants to spend the rest of his career on the Nets. He’s already burned too many bridges in Denver.

johnno: New Guy — you don’t think that Donnie and MDA have been posturing?Unlike most people, I think that they’ve played this brilliantly.Take emotion out of it and ignore the fantasy that the Knicks could get ‘Melo for nothing this summer.Billups and ‘Melo for Gallo, Chandler and Felton is a great deal for the Knicks.A simple way to judge a trade — who ended up with the best player?In this case, it’s the Knicks in a landslide.I really like Chandler and Gallo but they will never be as good as ‘Melo is now.  

Funny, I seem to recall ending up with the best player in every trade Isiah made, too. So maybe we shouldn’t be using such a simple method to judge a trade, no?

414 comments is too many for my browser to load so I’m gonna move to the top post.