I also said I would lean towards no on Melo.

I think David Lee is right there with someone like Melo. Different game, obviously, but not necessarily less unique or valuable. He scores almost as many points much more efficiently, is at least as good a passer at a position where playmakers are rarer, and is an elite rebounder for any position…
I do think GS made that kind of deal, which is why they did it. They were looking to trade AR well before that, though, if rumors are to be believed.

2. ” It should be pretty apparent early on whether last year was a blip or the real deal for Randolph. If he doesn’t impress us in terms of progress by the 10-20 game point, then chalk it up to a good gamble lost and look into moving on.”

I don’t think that’s necessarily true, which is what I’ve been trying to say. If he really puts it all together and kills it… sure it’ll be obvious. Even then, though, maybe it’s a few hot months and he cools down later in the season. If he starts out struggling or inconsistent… what does that tell you? Pretty much nothing.
As an example take Wilson Chandler. Say the Knicks took this approach with him last season. At the beginning of the season… he was playing TERRIBLY. He had little trade value anyway, but they would have moved him in the right deal were they taking the December approach. Then suddenly he started playing the best ball of his life. Ariza was also having an ice cold start when he was traded, a start that was not indicative of his career numbers.
I can’t even understand saying that a 21 year old–especially one with as much potential and also rawness as AR–is what he is over a 10-20 game span… It’s too small a sample for any player, but especially a 21 year old. Walshtoni I would have more faith in making the decision than us just looking at his stats and play, because they actually get to see his attitude and work ethic.

” I will say that with Ariza, and later Balkman, I never had a problem giving up on them because I never saw star potential and considered them easily replacable;”

I wouldn’t completely compare the situations, but… You don’t mind trading a 20 year old who had showed the game Ariza had for the corpse of Steve Francis? Have the Knicks really replaced him? Before the disaster season in Houston, he was above league average in terms of both PER and WS/48 for 3 seasons (Wilson Chandler, in contrast, has never come close to average). He’ll only be 25 next season. Even with his big new contract, he’s still worth Darren Collison on the trade market.

I did mind trading Balkman for a 2nd because he also has a unique skill set, but in hindsight it seems he has a work ethic issue that perhaps Walshtoni correctly identified in Summer League.

“*if* a 4-20 best player in the league is offered to the Knicks for Anthony Randolph and spare parts… they need to seriously consider it.”

I would consider it, but if it involves overpaying for a 15-20 player I am less inclined than I would be for underpaying a 4-7 player. I love Melo, but not at $22mil of cap space when we still have many positions to address.

(Interestingly, one could ask: Is David Lee close to or even in that 4-20 group? Statistically, one could make the argument, although I wouldn’t. If he is, then GS just made that kind of deal, not for top-20 $, but they may not have had to give AR up if they were patient. I certainly wouldn’t reverse that deal, even if Curry’s contract was included.)

“if he’s Deng or Williams he continues to string you along with his potential and you hold onto him waiting for the break-out that doesn’t really come (or fades) and then you’ve held onto him and paid him instead of trading him for a better player…
(Depending on how he develops) If the Knicks legitimately get offered one of the best players in the NBA for AR, that’s a chance that may not come around again before he hits free agency.”

I am only advocating that we wait until December to consider a deal, not wait a couple of years. It should be pretty apparent early on whether last year was a blip or the real deal for Randolph. If he doesn’t impress us in terms of progress by the 10-20 game point, then chalk it up to a good gamble lost and look into moving on. I never said that we should hold onto him. I will say that with Ariza, and later Balkman, I never had a problem giving up on them because I never saw star potential and considered them easily replacable; I just sense something special about this guy’s unique skillset and want to get a really good look. It is thankfully looking more and more like that will happen.

Melo is the only obvious example where that might come up. I would lean more towards not trading Randolph for Melo… For a guy better than Melo or not coming up on free agency, maybe.

“Honestly, you don’t really think there is really much chance he will devolve to a Miles, Young or (heaven forbid!) Curry, do you?”

I don’t expect it, but GS wasn’t looking for trade AR (there were rumors all season that they were shopping him) because he showed up every day with a great attitude and busted his ass to be the best player he could be.

That doesn’t mean his worth ethic/attitude is Miles or Curry bad: Nelson and GS (almost 2 decades ago) also gave up on Chris Webber because of attitude concerns… C-Webb still managed to help the Kings win a lot of games, though he never really did put it all together and reach his ceiling.

Young doesn’t seem like a crazy comparison to me. I don’t know exactly what’s going on with Young in Philly. His game is quite different from AR’s. Still, it’s someone who has failed to build on a strong 19 year old rookie season and would almost definitely fetch a lot less in a trade now than he would have then. I would still give Young a good chance of becoming a good rotation player, but would take his ceiling down from what it was at 19, 20. I don’t have any insight into what his problem(s) is/are, though.

“So if he turns out to be Ariza or Birdman or Deng or Williams, you still have a productive player and a valuable trade chip…and cap space to make the next deal possible.”

If he’s Deng or Williams he continues to string you along with his potential and you hold onto him waiting for the break-out that doesn’t really come (or fades) and then you’ve held onto him and paid him instead of trading him for a better player…
(Depending on how he develops) If the Knicks legitimately get offered one of the best players in the NBA for AR, that’s a chance that may not come around again before he hits free agency.

I’m quite high on AR and hope the Knicks hold onto him. I absolutely *expect* him to be a valuable NBA player given his early stats. I’m just saying that despite all our optimism his development still has a high degree of variability attached… Same with all young players. While it’s likely, it’s not a forgone conclusion he develops from point x to point y. Scoring efficiency, willingness to play inside/position concerns, and durability/consistency are questions AR has to answer. Maybe (hopefully) he comes out from day 1 of this season and answers them, but there’s also a good chance the answers are a work in progress for a couple of years. I’m just saying that we shouldn’t assume AR is definitely on the Kevin Durant fast track to world domination.

You did not, but the stats do. http://www.basketball-reference.com/play-index/pcm_finder.cgi?request=1&sum=1&p1=anthoca01&y1=2010&p2=chandwi01&y2=2010&p3=denglu01&y3=2010

In terms of both PER and WS/48 Deng is a mid-point between Wilson Chandler and Carmelo Anthony. If Chandler and Deng are close, it would mean Deng and Anthony are close.

“Melo has been a much much more efficient player over the last five years than Deng.”

? What do you mean by “more efficient player?” More efficient scorer? It’s a difference of .016 in TS% on their careers… The only sizable advantage Melo has is that he shoots the ball more.

“Comparing Melo to Deng is like comparing Durant to Gallo. It is not even close.”

Then the same can be said for comparing WC to Deng…

“As for the Noah +Deng vs WC + Curry + AR/Gallo”

My point was that for Melo. Those are the potential offers Denver may be evaluating.

As for the Noah +Deng vs WC + Curry + AR/Gallo I personally would not do that trade as a Knicks fan. Noah is more of a proven commodity but I would say it is very possible 50/50 that either AR or Gallo will end up as good or better than Noah and Chandler I think will end up as good or better than Deng and the Knicks package will be substantuallly cheaper over the next couple years.

Denver might prefer the lower risk Noah to Gallo or AR which I totally understand but when you consider the rest of the trade and take into account money and positional fit I think the NY trade is the better package for Denver. As for whether I would make the trades I would definately if I was Chicago and I would do the NY package with Gallo and probably with AR but never with both.

When you account for salary, you might be right. Again, if Deng is barely worse than Melo and WC is barely worse than Deng… how valuable is Melo at the end of the day?

The comparison is more Noah + Deng vs. WC, Curry, and AR/Gallo. Still… I’m on the fence if I give that up for Melo.

I’m not sure WC won’t get above $4-6 mill if he averages about 15 ppg for the 3rd straight season and the Knicks improve their win total. Then again, I can’t see him getting more either.

Take Thaddeus Young… When was his trade value at its highest? He had a very good season for a 19 year old by any measure and his value has declined ever since. The lists demonstrate that while there is a definite trend in that direction, not all impressive 19 year olds become All-NBA players. Anthony Randolph also put up a 19 year old WS/48 of 0.069, which is not impressive on the scale of Dwight Howard’s .131 or Kobe’s .147.
Darius Miles, same thing. He was worth Andre Miller at 21, then worth Jeff McInnis at 23…

“but even if Melo is where his “mean” projection was, do you even consider trading him on a rookie contract for anyone other than a top-3 player in the league”

I don’t know why we’re still comparing Durant and Anthony Randolph. You could just as easily compare Anthony Randolph to any of the other 19 year olds with strong seasons. There is no guarantee that AR will develop in the same manner as Durant, which was the point of the lists. That’s especially true after his sophomore slump. In fact, if AR ever becomes as good as any other scorer in the world (as Durant is) I will eat my hat. He does not have the scoring skill set that Durant had. I’m not looking for the Knicks to trade AR, but would I trade him for any other player besides LeBron, Dwight Howard, and Durant? Yes, I would.

And again, Durant’s development is not the rule but the exception.

“(assuming there were no character, work ethic, or injury issues.)”

There are quite a few of those issues with Randolph, which is why GS wanted to trade him. GS may very well be wrong about AR’s development (I think they probably are to some extent), but they did deal with the guy every day during the season. Since I’ve never met him, they may know more about his character, work ethic, and injury issues than me.

“Let’s find out for ourselves where he fits between Garnett and Josh Smith”

I would not call Josh Smith his floor by any means. Smith is one of the 19 year olds on those lists, has improved, and has been consistently healthy & productive. Smith is comparable in value to Carmelo Anthony (who on a rookie contract you would not trade for any non-top 3 player…). http://www.basketball-reference.com/play-index/pcm_finder.cgi?request=1&sum=0&p1=smithjo03&y1=2010&p2=anthoca01&y2=2010

If AR is more Thaddeus Young or Darius Miles or Eddy Curry or Eddie Griffin or even someone productive like Cliff Robinson or Luol Deng or Trevor Ariza or Marvin Williams or Al Harrington or Martell Webster and the Knicks choose to pass on trading him for a top 10 or top 20 player in the league, that may prove to be as much of a mistake as trading a future top 10-20 player for a current one. I wouldn’t make any general rule on these situations and rather take it on a case by case basis.

True, Ted. The point is, there is a realistic enough of a chance of it that you absolutely don’t trade him until you find out what you really have. In Durant’s case, there is no debating that he had an outstanding offensive season for a 19 year old by any measure.

“BS technicalities aside, here’s my point… After one season we couldn’t say whether Durant would be more LeBron, Melo, T-Mac, Cliff Robinson, Thaddeus Young, Josh Smith, Chris Bosh, Darius Miles… etc. That’s a huge range. He certainly had a good chance to be a special player, but he’s hit his ceiling on the head. That’s not going to happen every time.Most likely I would have expected Durant to become more Melo level than Durant level. To some there is little or no difference, but to me it’s pretty substantial.”

I agree it’s a huge difference, but even if Melo is where his “mean” projection was, do you even consider trading him on a rookie contract for anyone other than a top-3 player in the league (assuming there were no character, work ethic, or injury issues.) The guy had franchise player written all over him coming out of college, and nothing in his first year put that into question; in fact, you can argue that it did much more to confirm than to dispel that projection.

In Randolph’s case, you could easily argue that his 19 year old season was even more impressive than Durant’s, although I do value the minutes that Durant played enough not to make that argument. It is only because of GS’s conclusions about his development that we even had a shot of getting him. I strongly believe that we need to find out whether his 2nd year was a fluke or a harbinger of things to come. It seems that at worst, he will be a very solid and versatile forward, so the risk of passing on a deal for a “second level” star is worth taking, especially when you consider salary cap implications.
Let’s find out for ourselves where he fits between Garnett and Josh Smith before jumping the gun.