If they can get a first for Lee, they should take it. It is a good value, it make the team more reliant on the players that will be part of the next theoretically good Knicks team and it allows the Knicks to avoid the last two years of Lee’s contract.

If they can’t get a first for Lee, well, then that’s lame. But sure, if they can’t get a first for him, hold on to him, but damn, how can they not get a first for him?

In the alternative, if some team is offering a first and they’re not taking it? They should stop doing that.

I don’t think there’s an obvious answer there. Learning to play tough on the road, having a good two-way guy to learn from, there’s some advantage there. There’s advantage in picking higher, but that low in the draft a position or two isn’t necessarily a game changer. If we get a really good deal for Lee sure, go for it. But we likely won’t get an obvious win. I don’t think making a mediocre deal for Lee just to try to lose a few games is an obvious step forward. Feels like treading water, minor effects either way.

I don’t think anyone would argue that moving from 12th to 10th moves the needle in a relevant way.

The question to me is: what moves the needle more, 4 more wins or 2-3 spots in the lottery? 8 more wins or 6 spots in the lottery? And in that comparison, I think the lottery spots are more valuable than the wins in the Knicks particular case.

If we’re talking about the 5th seed or tanking, or course I’ll take the 5th seed, because we ain’t getting there without major improvements from the guys who need to improve. But if going from 12th to 10th is meaningless, are those 2 wins really more meaningful? What’s more meaningful and where do we draw the line?

We’re too good to tank properly just by shifting Lee and KOQ. There are a bunch of teams much worse than us.
Shutting down the rest artificially is a bad idea for development and absent that we aren’t getting a high pick. Most teams go through this space of ‘are our young guys gonna develop into champs?’ There are no sure things. We can hope it goes well (and it probably won’t, it doesn’t for most everybody, almost all the time) or we can blow it up completely and sell high on the promise of the young guys we have in hopes of better young guys down the line. Running a minor tank for the 10th or 12th pick doesn’t move the needle at all.

Sir Robin,
Our definitions of serviceable must be very different. These are the 3 Pelican players I included in the trade, along with their minutes played:

Hill – 0
Asik – 57
Ajinca – 0

Hill is below average. Asik and Ajinca are awful. All 3 are grossly overpaid. So trading them for Noah is a sign that he has no value.

@ 56, you’re 100% right! All-star point guards don’t grow on trees. That’s phase three. Till then we have to do smaller but smart moves to land a solid guard & balance this roster. Have to put ourselves in a position so that we can get lucky. Timing is everything.

It’s time we come to grip with who Willy really is & use him as additional bait in a package with KOQ, whom we’ll just end up losing because he’ll opt out and we won’t pay.

Lee should be packaged next year in February. No rush with him unless we are approached with an offer we can’t refuse.

If they can still make the playoffs, it’s probably a decent enough core that a lower pick isn’t worth getting too upset about. If they can’t, then we need a higher pick and we’ll get one.

Yeah, totally. If they get rid of the vets and still win, that’s awesome. That is a good sign for the future. By the way, why isn’t some team out there trading a first for Lee? It’s maddening.