MSG3 wrote:Hey gang. It's been forever since I posted. Can't believe KP is gone. This reeks of same old, same old with Dolan/Knicks. However, in the spirit of "So lets say"....I think the Knicks are all in on a big 3 next season....and I think the next step in their minds is trading for Anthony Davis before the deadline. And, unfortunately, I think they're going to make the 2019 pick the centerpiece of the deal. Or at a minimum offer New Orleans multiplie 1st's including the rights to swap with the Knicks in this coming draft. Trading KP away a week before the deadline wouldn't make sense otherwise. If they get a star before the deadline it would help Mills/Perry save face and prove their concept in trading the home grown stud. Getting AD in the fold now also ensures that another star (or 2) joins in the summer.
I really dont want to get rid of the pick this year. It's guaranteed to be top 5-6 and likely will be a top 3 pick. Giving up Zion, Morant or Barrett would suck. But the Knicks will probably take the position that even with the worst record, their chances of getting someone other than Zion are 86%. And that will justify sending it for AD. And if they end up having a core of Kyrie, KD and AD or Kyrie, Kawhi and AD or some other combo if studs, it'll be hard to say they were absolutely wrong to do it.
My apprehension is that this **** never works out for the Knicks. And Im desperate at the chance to draft Zion who could very well be an MJ, LeBron type franchise talent.
Can't believe KP is not in the future of the Knicks. Unreal, yet very believable at the same time because Knicks.
Well if you go by this article then we have to trade for AD in the offseason to make the money work for us to get 2 max players with getting AD. If we didn't use the stretch provision on J.Noah then we could of gone about it differently.
The idea of Durant and Irving playing together in New York had been whispered about previously. But now that the Knicks have cleared a path to signing both of them outright, it has quickly exploded into full-on speculation. It has been thought for months that Durant's most logical destination, should he choose to leave Golden State, would be to come East and join the Knicks. Several rival teams this week said that is their full expectation -- and that was before the Knicks, clearly feeling confident about their chances, used Porzingis to push all their chips to the center of the table.
None of this, of course, has any impact on Golden State's thinking, sources said. Even if Durant went to team brass and said there was no chance he was coming back this summer -- and, to be clear, that hasn't happened -- it's not as if the Warriors would consider the possibility of trading him. Their plan, as it has been all season, is to go win a third straight title this spring, see what happens this summer and then act accordingly.
With all that said, July is far away, and there are many Knicks fans here who woke up Friday feeling like the equivalent of Charlie Brown trying to kick the football, only to have Lucy rip it away again. And, truthfully, who could blame them? Remarkably, the Knicks have not signed a first-round pick to a second long-term contract since Charlie Ward -- whom they drafted 25 years ago. In a league full of mind-boggling numbers, that might be the single most unbelievable one.
Porzingis was supposed to, finally, change that. But then came the frayed relationship with the organization under Phil Jackson, then the torn ACL that knocked him out for the final months of last season and all of this one, which set the stage for Thursday's stunning events, even by Knicks standards.
It has been an open secret in the NBA for months that the Knicks have been exploring every avenue to create max salary slots for this offseason, in pursuit of landing Durant and a second star this summer. Rival executives were salivating over the possibility of the Knicks securing a commitment from Durant and another star this summer, only for them to then have to find a way to create the space necessary to actually sign them. Some thought the price for doing so could be up to as many as three future first-round picks, which fits right in line with the roughly $18 million to $20 million rate per pick the league has essentially come to when determining the value of a first-rounder to dump salary.
So the Knicks had a choice: use their young players and draft capital to create the space to pair two stars with Porzingis, or use Porzingis to create the space -- and add additional assets on top of it.
And, for all of The Garden's spin Thursday that this was about Porzingis declaring he wanted to leave New York, in reality, it was the opposite: The Knicks, rightly or wrongly, clearly were not convinced Porzingis was worth offering a max contract this summer. No player in NBA history has turned down a max contract offer coming off a rookie scale contract. It seems unlikely that Porzingis, no matter his level of frustration with the Knicks, would have become the first while coming off a torn ACL that Mavericks owner Mark Cuban told ESPN's Tim MacMahon probably would keep Porzingis sidelined all season.
Instead, the Knicks decided the better option was to use Porzingis to not only clear $50 million in unwanted salary but also to bring back Dennis Smith Jr. and two future first-round picks, assets that could be used in future deals to secure talent, should their free-agent plans play out as they hope they will.
Doing so also opens up another -- albeit extremely complicated -- scenario in which the Knicks could land not only Durant and Irving this summer, but Anthony Davis as well.
First, the Knicks would need to get lucky in the lottery, winning it for the first time since getting Patrick Ewing in 1985.
Second, they would then have to secure commitments from Durant and Irving when they become free agents July 1.
Finally, once they had the two free agents in hand, they'd need Davis to either still be in New Orleans, or be with some other team that would be open to trading him. They then could use the lure of Zion Williamson, coupled with Smith, Frank Ntilikina, Mitchell Robinson and Kevin Knox and whatever other picks the Knicks would potentially have to add to the mix to land Davis in a trade.
New York would've been able to make all of those moves at once had it not stretch-waived the final year of Joakim Noah's contract already. Instead, in this scenario, the Knicks would have to wait to officially trade for Davis until the waiting period before signed draft picks can be traded is complete, so they can include that salary in the deal to make the money work (much as Cleveland did with Andrew Wiggins in 2014).
Even setting that long-shot scenario aside, the Knicks obviously would still be thrilled to land Durant and Irving as free agents in July. And, while sitting courtside Friday morning, Irving did nothing to dispel the notion that was possible.
2/1/2019 12:58 PM