Day: May 20, 2015

[ESPN.com – New York Knicks] Knicks GM: No. 4 pick not 'setback,' keeping options open (Wed, 20 May 2015 01:32:18 EST)

Knicks GM: No. 4 pick not 'setback,' keeping options open

[New York Daily News] Knicks get No. 4 pick in 2015 NBA draft (Wed, 20 May 2015 05:36:17 GMT)

Phil Jackson did not hit the jackpot, and he did not even land the all-important consolation prize.

[New York Daily News] Isola: NBA draft’s 4th pick is a loss for Jackson’s Knicks (Wed, 20 May 2015 05:34:29 GMT)

Phil Jackson should tell his basketball gods to go to hell. Or maybe he’ll tweet it since he couldn’t represent the Knicks at the lottery.

[New York Post] Russell or Mudiay? Knicks’ attention turns to 2 star guards (Wed, 20 May 2015 01:38:25 -0400)

The Knicks' focus now shifts from a debate between big-man studs Karl-Anthony Towns and Jahlil Okafor to head scratching over the worth of point guards Emmanuel Mudiay and D'Angelo Russell,…

[New York Post] Mock 1.0: The Post’s 2015 NBA Draft predictions (Wed, 20 May 2015 00:06:56 -0400)

Now that we know the order of next month's NBA draft following Tuesday night's lottery drawing, it's time to take our first crack at how it will shake out at…

[New York Times] For Cleveland and Atlanta, Plenty of Sports Lowlights (Wed, 20 May 2015 07:12:59 GMT)

On the sports misery index, Atlanta and Cleveland are hard to beat.

[New York Times] Wolves Finally Come Out on Top After Heartache, Bad Luck (Wed, 20 May 2015 06:34:06 GMT)

His voice cracking and tears welling in his eyes, Flip Saunders pointed to the sky about 20 minutes after the Minnesota Timberwolves — the franchise that has been down on its luck for most of the past 25 years — won the draft lottery to get the No. 1 overall selection.

[New York Times] Best Shot: J.R. Smith Making Most of Fresh Start With Cavs (Wed, 20 May 2015 06:34:01 GMT)

J.R. Smith barely has as an inch of skin not covered by tattoos, offering a colorful timeline of the enigmatic Cleveland shooting guard’s life.

[New York Times] Curry Sparks Warriors to Game One Victory Over Houston (Wed, 20 May 2015 04:42:42 GMT)

Stephen Curry won his personal duel with James Harden as the Golden State Warriors overcame an early deficit and survived a late scare to edge the Houston Rockets 110-106 in Game One of the Western Conference Finals on Tuesday.

[New York Times] Warriors 110, Rockets 106: Rockets Surge and Resurge, but Warriors Hold On (Wed, 20 May 2015 04:23:28 GMT)

Houston led by 16 early in the second quarter, but Golden State somehow moved in front by halftime, scored 11 straight points late and used two free throws with 11.8 seconds left to seal the result.

[New York Times] Warriors Rally Past Rockets 110-106 in Game 1 of West Finals (Wed, 20 May 2015 04:16:14 GMT)

Down big at home, the Golden State Warriors went small.

[New York Times] Warriors Rally Past Rockets 110-106 in Game 1 of West Finals (Wed, 20 May 2015 04:10:23 GMT)

Stephen Curry hit two free throws in the final seconds to finish with 34 points, and the Golden State Warriors rallied from 16 points down in the second quarter to beat the Houston Rockets 110-106 on Tuesday night in Game 1 of the Western Conference finals.

[New York Times] N.B.A. Draft Lottery 2015: Timberwolves Get First Pick (Wed, 20 May 2015 02:56:59 GMT)

Minnesota became only the fifth team to finish with the N.B.A.’s worst record and win the lottery that same year. The Knicks, who had the second-best odds at the top pick, fell to No. 4.

[New York Times] Timberwolves Win Draft Lottery, Lakers Move to No. 2 (Wed, 20 May 2015 02:25:04 GMT)

The Minnesota Timberwolves have won the NBA draft lottery, the first time since 2004 the team with the worst record won the No. 1 pick.

[New York Times] Timberwolves Win Lottery for Top Draft Pick (Wed, 20 May 2015 02:18:41 GMT)

The Minnesota Timberwolves won the National Basketball Association’s draft lottery on Tuesday, giving them the opportunity to make the first selection in June’s draft.

[New York Times] 2 Teams That Made Big Strides Look to Take Another Step (Wed, 20 May 2015 01:05:08 GMT)

The Cavaliers and the Hawks, whose series begins Wednesday, pulled off remarkable turnarounds, with Cleveland relying on LeBron James and Atlanta on Mike Budenholzer’s system.

[New York Times] Rev. John Lo Schiavo, Who Barred Basketball, Dies at 90 (Wed, 20 May 2015 00:24:02 GMT)

Father Lo Schiavo, who spent 14 years as president of the University of San Francisco, made headlines when he suspended the men’s basketball program after repeated violations of N.C.A.A. rules.

We’ll have more coverage of this Wednesday morning by everyone’s friend, David Crockett, but it just occurred to me that we probably should have a quick thread on the event itself – the Knicks falling to the #4 slot in the NBA Draft, the only team in the entire draft to fall from their scheduled draft slot, with the Lakers rising from #4 to take the Knicks’ #2 slot.

Due to winning two late season games that the Knicks had no business winning, the Knicks ceded the top group of four-digit combinations to the Minnesota Timberwolves and it was one of those combinations that ended up winning the lottery for the Timberwolves. So, once again, if winning a game hurts your draft chances and you can prevent yourself from winning the game, just lose the darn game. I’m sure that is a lesson some other team will now learn from the Knicks. The New York Knicks – the object lesson for other teams since 2000.

Anyhow, luckily enough, this year’s draft class is quite good, and I’d honestly take any of the four best players in this year’s draft over the #1 pick in either of the last two drafts (and I’d take Winslow and WCS and probably a bunch of other guys over Andrew Bennett, as well, and maybe Winslow over Wiggins, but probably not). One of the two top point guard prospects, Emmanuel Mudiay and D’Angelo Russell, will be there at #4. Either one could turn out to be a star. Justise Winslow is also an excellent prospect, so he could be in play at #4. I wanted either Towns or Okafor with Russell as the back-up and it looks like none of those three will be there at #4, but, well, maybe the Knicks will get lucky (hey, stop laughing!) and either one of those three guys will fall to #4 or Mudiay turns out to be the best player in the draft. It is definitely possible.

Now that we know where the Knicks are drafting, we officially now also know how much ca room the Knicks will have (based on a $66,500,000 cap. It could be higher than that, but everyone is currently projecting $66.5).

According to the Ultimate Blog Post On best sneakers for basketball The Knicks’ #4 pick’s cap hold is $3,443,100. The rest of their salaries are 33,272,450.

That’s six players (the #4 pick plus Melo, Calderon, THJ, Anthony and Galloway) for a sum of $36,715,550.

However, you also need to take into account the fact that the Knicks have to have cap holds for their remaining six spots. Each cap hold is the minimum, so $525,093 per slot. For every free agent you sign, however, you fill in one of those slots. So for the purposes of this exercise, let’s assume Phil Jackson signs three free agents, so we’ll only have to account for three minimum slots. So it is $525,093 times three, or $1,575,279.

That brings us to $38,290,829. Subtract that from $66,500,000 and the Knicks have roughly:

$28,209,171 to spend on three free agents.

If the Knicks sign less than three free agents with their cap room or more than three free agents with their cap room, here is what they will have in cap room:

$27,684,078 to spend on two free agents.

$28,734,264 to spend on four free agents

$29,259,357 to spend on five free agents

$29,784,450 to spend on six free agents

It is important to note, however, that the Knicks will also have access to the room exception, which is $2,732,000. This is an exception given to teams who use up almost all or all of their cap room (but are not over the cap). It allows them to go over the cap, but only for $2,732,000 for one player (I believe that’s half the current mid-level). So the Knicks can spend the full $27,684,078 on two players and then use the room exception to sign a third player.

So if Jackson wants to hand out three mid-size contracts, he has $28,209,171 to work with. If he wants to hand out two big contracts and one room exception contract, he’ll have $27,684,078 to work with on the two big deals.

The Knicks have enough to make one max offer, but not two. They obviously can open up a lot more room if they somehow dump Calderon’s contract (it is kind of funny to note that had they kept Felton and just cut him, they’d have room for two max offers now).

EDITED TO ADD: Just for fun, if the Knicks waived Calderon and used the stretch provision on him, they’d open up roughly a little under $4 million in cap space ($4,380,683 minus the additional $525,093 cap slot they’d be opening up). So in that scenario, they’d have $31,539,668 in cap space for two free agents, almost literally the exact amount of cap room needed for two max offers (for young players with maxes of $15.7 million, of course, like Draymond Green and Greg Monroe, not older maxes of $20 million for players like Marc Gasol and LaMarcus Aldridge).

They’d have to pay Calderon roughly $3 million for the next five years, though, but with the cap rising, that’s probably not a huge deal.