If Gay commands $8 million, even better. The bottom line is we need a point guard to make this system work. There are no good FA point guards available this summer or next. Here is the list of 2010 FA PGs who could even conceivably start:

Kyle Lowry
Steve Blake
Rafer Alston
Luke Ridnour
Sergio Rodriguez
Raymond Felton

Blake and Alston are old and were never that good. Lowry is shoots 29% from three. Ridnour and Rodriguez play no defense.

2011 offers… Mike Conley, Ronnie Price, Tony Parker, Sasha Vujacic, Aaron Brooks

Conley and Brooks might be serviceable, but they’re not even that big of upgrades on Duhon. Parker will be 29, can’t shoot from the perimeter, and is not much of a passer — you don’t sign aging point guards to long term deals.

Lou Williams has a TS% of .565 this year. For his career he is a 33% shooter from three – not great, but HE’S ONLY 23 YEARS OLD. David Lee will be 27 in April. By the time this LeBron-less and Wade-less team matures to the point of being a contender, he’ll be 30 and likely in decline. Furthermore, Williams has 3 years left on his contract at only $6 million per. That’s a bargain now, and if he continues to develop could be a veritable steal. Willie Green is only part of the deal because his contract expires at the end of the 2011 season. Any $4 million expiring deal would work.

Even if Lee is more valuable than Williams, he is our only chip left to sign and trade. You need a point guard. What other young point guard could you get at the price of Lee? I can’t think of anyone.

Gay, Gallinari, and Chandler work fine to fill the 2, 3, and 4 on a D’Antoni team. Chandler may seem like an untraditional 2, but he’s playing the best basketball of his career as a shooting guard. You want to say Rudy Gay is the wrong player to sign — fine. Who do you sign instead? Joe Johnson? He’s old. Ronnie Brewer? He can’t shoot. Tracy McGrady? Channing Frye? Ginobili? Boozer? All these guys are either too old for our young team, or in Frye’s case, not that good.

Knicks could build incrementally and have the exact same $45 mill to spend over the next two years without the trade. The trade is about 2010, if they don’t do something this offseason the trade didn’t work out for them. I’m on board, I’m just saying we will be able to say “didn’t work out” in hindsight.

Totally not worth $11 mill. He’s no better than Chandler. Possibly worse when you consider defense. At $8 mill I probably wouldn’t touch Gay.

Brian,

Good point in #106. That is valuable.

Z-Man,

“So the extra cap room is potentially worth way more than the lost draft picks and the rights to Hill unless the rebuilding play goes terribly awry.”

It is DEFINITELY *potentially* worth way, way, way, way more than what the Knicks gave up. However, I don’t think the rebuilding would have to go terrible awry for it not to be. LeBron signing is at best a 50/50 proposition so far as we fans know (maybe Walsh knows differently). Wade signing is probably a significantly lower chance, I think the best chance is if LeBron convinces him. Bosh? Who cares? Not a huge improvement on Lee. I wouldn’t call two guys not signing “terribly awry.”

latke,

The Knicks would have had cap space in 2011 regardless, so that doesn’t count towards making this a good deal. It counts towards making it a bad deal.

No way in hell would I trade Lee for Lou Williams, a mid-1st, and the worst chucker in the world (Willie Green). Lou Williams is barely a PG.
As I said, no way do I sign Gay. I don’t know if Camby would come to the LeBron-less Knicks for only $3 mill.

Frank O.,

“Oh, and as of today, the Knicks backcourt is better than it was, hands down,”

Not if T-Mac decides to be T-Mac and take 30 shots a night.

“I have been saying the Knicks need to clear cap space and they need to create greater flexibility and that no one should be safe.
The Knicks have 19 freakin wins, folks.”

The fact they stink and have 19 wins is a good reason to keep their picks. I’m glad they made the trade, but to simply say this was the greatest trade ever and there is no room to be worried about it is ridiculous.

“Yes, the knicks gave up some picks, but they used Nate to get another pick back.”

I haven’t seen this anywhere… I’ve seen House, Giddens, and Walker. Hope I missed it.

I don’t know exactly how much Sergio will get. I just know that he’ll get a tax free offer and European teams also pay your housing and car. Plus he’s Spanish and may or may not want to go home and be a (somewhat) big star. I don’t know what that will mean in NBA dollars.

Was Rodriguez a free agent either of the last two years? (I honestly don’t know… as far as I know he’s on his rookie deal but maybe he was restricted last season.) It depends on his wishes and also what top Euro teams are looking for a PG or what mid-level team wants to sink a big part of their budget into a star, but I’m pretty confident he’ll get a solid offer from Europe. His quickness and athleticism will stand out in Europe more than they do in the NBA. His lack of shooting will still hurt him, but a lot of top teams employ a real specialization of labor approach in their backcourt: one pure point and a combo-guard and a bigger guard. Unlike in the NBA where guys are expected to have multiple skills (a matter of degree, of course). A point like Pablo Prignoni, Pepe Sanchez, Raul Lopez, Ricky Rubio with a Louis Bullock or JC Navarro. Rodriguez would be a great fit in the PG role. Don’t know what he’s worth to teams, I have a friend who is a scout for a German team who I’ll ask what he thinks.

As far as coming over so young… it certainly might be that he wants/wanted above all to be an NBA player. He’s got the NBA flare in his game. It’s also a good financial strategy for a late 1st round pick, though, due to the NBA’s salary structure. Come young and make your $1 mill per, then get to your 2nd contract faster. Otherwise, if you’re good, you end up in a situation like Tiago Splitter where you have to take a paycut to come to the NBA. What he wanted at 19 is also not necessarily what he’ll want now.

If nothing else his agent can use a similar European contract to push up his value a little.

I guess I should not be so certain about it, and after playing with D’Antoni maybe he at least takes a 1 yr deal to see if he can’t raise his value significantly in 2011. PG is also not as rare in Europe as good bigger players, so that works against him.

Now that I think about it, that’s actually a very valuable component of this deal. Before this trade, the Knicks could only spend roughly $11 million on free agents before they exceeded David Lee’s cap hold. Now it’s $20.5 million. That’s big. As soon as Mike’s done editing the current piece, I’m so editing that bit into my grade!

In that context I would consider Johnson an A-list FA and maybe even Amare (I think that’s what Hollinger meant anyway). Even Lee could be considered A-list, being an All-Star.

Re-signing Lee would not be adding 3 players, but 2. Plus losing Nate and Harrington. The big question I have is that other David Lee type of FAs are out there? Lee himself might get $12 mill or more, meaning you can’t sign 3 of him. What other FAs are in that second group? No other All-Stars. I would say Manu is the only sure thing, and he might be an A-lister. Rudy Gay? No better than Chandler. Boozer? Likely to be overpaid, probably not compatible with Lee, and seems to have attitude issues. Tyrus Thomas and Raymond Felton? Would improve the Knicks defense, but both are weak-to-miserable offensively. Mike Miller or Marcus Camby? I like both, but they’re not getting younger. Manu, Mike Miller, and Camby (and find a PG somewhere) I think they’d be a playoff team of close. That also assumes a lot going right, though. Manu is thought to be likely to re-sign with San Antonio, and if not it’s probably because the Knicks blow him out of the water financially. He may be in decline, so a questionable move. Camby and Miller with probably be looking at deals with contenders, so again the Knicks have to beat deal, maybe beating the MLE. So, maybe the Knicks could get two of those guys if everything goes according to plan.

The other point is that they could have built that kind of a team without this deal. They could have signed 2 Lee types and a bargain guy. Then traded Curry and/or Jeffries and/or Hill, Chandler, Gallo, Doulgas, picks. They didn’t have to give away Jeffries with picks to build that way.

http://realgm.com/src_wiretap_archives/64878/20100219/celtics_have_mixed_reactions_to_nate_deal/

I agree with Phil in that Nate is not as consistent on the 3. While I haven’t followed him closely, House has that quality of being ready to shoot and make the 3 no matter when he is put in and is immune to pressure. Maybe Nate can develop that now that he is on a good team. He can certainly penetrate way better than House and now he has better players to dish to.

Sign Rudy Gay @ $11 million per. Wouldn’t we rather have Lee than Gay? No way! Gay may not be the most enthusiastic player, but he plays great defense, can score, and can create his own offense. Even if you believe Lee is superior, we needed a point guard, and the only way to acquire a good one was to move Lee.

If you’re considering giving Rudy Gay $11 million, then acquiring a point guard doesn’t seem to be your main concern, as you would just use some of the money you’re throwing at Gay for a point guard.

Gay’s certainly not useless, but he’s a good deal worse than Lee and plays the same position as Gallo and Chandler, the former of which is only slightly worse than Gay at a third of the proposed cost!