I loved the first deal (for Rose and 2 draft picks. Mohammed stinks anyway and being able to put Isiah in his best area of performance is a good thing.) The second deal was a headscratcher, as Isiah turned 2 duds into a pretty good offensive forward who doesn't rebound (like Tim Thomas).

I thought this was a good review, thanks to Knickerblogger.net:

"At the trade deadline the Knicks consummated two separate deals. If you’ve not had an opportunity to read the Knickerblogger’s excellent breakdown of the deals please do so. He does an especially good job of debunking the knee-jerk media tendency to ignore the importance of draft picks in deadline deals.

At the risk of putting words into his virtual mouth, he basically argues that the Knicks are in the seventh layer of salary cap hell until 2007 irrespective of what they do primarily because of Houston’s contract (KB: that's exactly what I was arguing). Consequently, he argues, the amount by which the Knicks exceed the cap threshold is irrelevant as a strategic matter, at least it is until Houston comes off the cap in summer ‘07. If the Knicks wish to rebuild with young players and/or draft picks other teams will assuredly demand a premium; either the Knick’s young players or cap relief.

Given this, the real wisdom in taking on a given contract lies in its implications for financial flexibility at the beginning of the 2007-2008 season (i.e., when Houston comes off the books). Prior to that Marbury’s and Houston’s pacts will keep the team hopelessly above the cap. (A nice salary breakdown per season can be found here.) Of course the other piece to the puzzle is the roster construction.

So let’s take an even closer look at the two deadline deals from both a financial and a roster construction perspective.

Deal 1
· The Knicks Receive: Malik Rose, PF, 2005 first round draft choice (SA via Pho), and 2006 first round draft choice
· The Spurs Receive: Nazr Mohammed, C, Jamison Brewer, G

Financially, the Knicks have replaced Mohammed’s short, reasonable deal with Rose’s considerably longer, less cap-friendly deal. Rose enters the final year of his deal, which pays him $7.1 million, just as the Knicks get out from under Houston’s mega-deal. By then I expect Rose’s current 15.5 PER to have shrunk considerably, right along with his market value. I think it’s reasonable to anticipate that, short of a buyout, Rose is in NY for the duration of his deal. Clearly, this is the bitter pill Thomas was willing to swallow for the two first round picks.

What might those picks turn into? Obviously, there’s no way to characterize future picks as anything other than a gamble. Yet there is no risk-free way to acquire talent prior to its prime. One way we might consider the value of the 2005 draft (New York’s own lottery pick paired with the pick coming from San Antonio through Phoenix) is by look at the past few drafts. I was not at all sold on the wisdom of this deal until I went back and looked at who was drafted in the spots where New York’s and Phoenix’s picks would land based on record (i.e., 6th and 29th overall as of this writing).

A glance back at 6th and the next-to-last players drafted in round 1 from 2000-2004 might make Isiah’s decision to pull the trigger on this deal easier to understand, even at the price of Rose’s contract. (Recall that the first round only had 28 picks total until 2003.)

2004 – Josh Childress, Atlanta; David Harrison, Indiana (Luol Deng #7, Chicago)
2003 – Chris Kaman, Clippers; Josh Howard, Dallas
2002 – Dejuan Wagner, Cleveland; Chris Jeffries, Lakers (Nene #7, Wilcox #8, Stoudamire #9)
2001 – Shane Battier, Mem; Jamal Tinsley, Atlanta (Tony Parker #28)
2000 – DeMarr Johnson, Atlanta; Erick Barkley, Portland (Mark Madsen #29)

So really, the question is how wise was it to swap Mohammed’s contract for two additional (slightly more expensive) years of Rose and a two-in-five shot at Kaman/Howard or Battier/Tinsley? Framed this way the deal looks like a pretty reasonable gamble. Consider also that this is purely a deadline deal; no way does San Antonio consummates this deal during the off-season. San Antonio doesn’t need Phoenix’s 2005 or its own 2006 pick, but they could demand a much greater premium for them on draft night than Nazr Mohammed and Jamison Brewer. They could easily trade for future picks or draft some European teenager and keep his rights.

Even though the picks will be towards the end of the round the cap makes it prohibitive to have two lottery picks in consecutive seasons anyway. Also, the Knicks may be able to package the pair to target a specific player. Isiah’s thinking here is shrewd because he’s taking most of the bitter medicine now while the team is well over the cap anyway, with an eye toward 2007-2008 when he’ll have maturing young talent and money coming off the cap.

Deal 2
· The Knicks Receive: Maurice Taylor, PF
· The Rockets Receive: Moochie Norris, G, Vin Baker, F, and 2006 second round draft choice.

Much like the Knickerblogger I think had Isiah stopped with the previous deal I’d be pretty darned happy with things. Unfortunately, just like last season Zeke has a knack for making one deal too many; one that will eventually cost him something to undo. My impression is that I’m a bit more leery about the impact of this deal than is the Knickerblogger. Two things about it really bother me well beyond their curious nature.

First, what need does Mo Taylor address? Surely, the role of overpaid, undersized power forward has now been amply filled by Rose for the foreseeable future. Even anticipating an off-season move involving one or more of the Knick forwards, the Knicks are well-stocked at the position. Taylor is a worse rebounder than Tim Thomas, who at least shoots a high % from 3 point range. Taylor doesn’t defend; his 19 oPER is Moochie Norris bad. Worst, Taylor is expensive at over $9million per, meaning he’s not likely to be more valuable nor converted into anything more valuable than what NY gave up to get him.

Second, Taylor further skews an already unbalanced roster into a dangerously guard-light roster. The team now has no third guard and no true third small forward, but has 5 capable power forwards. This is not just an aesthetics problem. The Knicks simply cannot afford for Hardaway or Crawford to be injured again this season. They would have to sign a guard off the street. Moving both Norris and Brewer without getting at least an emergency guard in return is just silly; worse yet, it may be expensive. New York is virtually guaranteed to enter the off-season, if not before, desperate for a third guard. As a consequence Thomas will almost assuredly pay a premium unless he drafts one. There’s no way the Knicks can go into next season carrying only two guards, and every GM in the league knows this. Had the Knicks thrown in Sundov and cash for Reece Gaines this deal would have still been superfluous but at least not innately harmful. As it stands this deal makes zero sense on any dimension – financial, performance, or roster balance."


We all talked about Isiah's "plan" and if he has one. I think what he handed into Dolan was a look at the Knicks' salary cap situation for the forseeable future and said, since we aren't ever going to be under the cap with Houston, Marbury, and Shandon still on our books, we might as well take back some money and improve the talent and get younger.

He did that.

Malik Rose is really underrated, and he's the type of player Isiah, in my mind, wanted to acquire. A good defensive player, hustles, good effort.

What do the Knicks need now?
a) A center.
b) Backcourt depth.

Looking at the offseason, the draft has 3 viable center options (Bogut, Petro, and the Lithuanian), as well as several backcourt options (Diaz, McCants, Deron Williams are my 3 favorite backcourt options). With the MLE, a guy like Stephen Hunter could be had at C. Obviously Isiah knows the roster is thin on C and backup G right now, but this offseason he could restock and provide the depth and get the C he needs, all the while getting younger.

Further re-tooling on the fly.

Were the moves great? No. But after thinking about it logically and not just jumping to conclusions, I'd say the moves were right in line with what Isiah's said all along and if you don't read what the "experts" say (Chad Ford, the expert he is, said Mohammed would help SA's shotblocking...Mohammed, for his career, averages 0.6 blocked shots per game. Does Chad Ford even watch the NBA?) I don't really think the moves were that bad.

Contracts aside, you got:
2 bad players for an OK player.
An OK player and a bad player for an OK player and 2 late draft picks.

It's the best spin you can put on it, while maintaining some credibility.

I dont think this is much different from everyone's opinion. Most people like the first deal and hate the second deal, and there are surely contraditory. I think even the people at MSG can understand that.

Personally I think that Malik Rose is the type of player that helps teams win. It's all about fit, and perhaps Nazr fit in SA better than he did here.


I'm in agreement that our biggets needs is C-SF- and G. Unless we have a top 3 pick, Im started to shy off the big men in the draft, and really like Diaz for our team. he represents a perfect fit as an impact 6th man, who would increase our toughness team speed/athletiscm etc... with a TREMENDOUS skill set.

Im willing to package Sweetney and the pick to move up in the draft high enough that it would allow us to also acguire 7-0 225 F Nick Fazekas who has a lot of Dirk in him.

I want to get two young skill players who make sense. I dont want to gamble and I just don't think we have the need for Sweetney having Rose Taylor and Williams signed long term.

i dont look at those guys as being signed long term since the closer they get to their expiring deals the easier it is to trade them. When I think of Long term i think of Marbury and Crawfords contracts which go past 2009.

Posted by Marv:

Posted by gunsnewing:


I want to meet the guy who wrote this since he wrote the only sensible article about the knicks in 3 days!

Guns, here he is:

http://www.knickerblogger.net/

I've checked him out for a couple of years and he's good.

yes, good stuff over at the knicks blog site.

what is with this obsession of being under the cap, how many under the cap teams are good teams? and lets leave out the spurs they got lucky both in lottery and with injuries to robinson, but hey after they resign ginobili and parker they too will be over the cap.. So again whats with this obsession? Do you want to have a team with 5 scrubs making a total of 10 millions dollars, then we can sit around lose every game, hold hands and sing "cum ba ya" while we lose 70 games, but hey. we will be under the cap, so all is well!!!!!

Ginobili and parker are not even talked about if not for Duncan. As far as flexibility goes, yea that is not bad, but at some point, you make decisions to sign players and at some point in that attempt you go over the cap, remember IT inherited this cap problem, stop acting as if these moves are stopping us from getting under the cap when it really matters. Had IT came here and just sat on his hands for 3 years, we would still be over the cap...

Both trades were totally unnecessary.

Both guys make a lot of money. Rose makes money past Houston.
Mo is just a waste.

The 2 1st round picks are really really late, more like 2nd roudn picks.

You can spin this as much as you want, but there is a reason the entire league is laughing at the NY yet again.

Posted by islesfan:

Posted by gunsnewing:

Oh my! exactly what i've been saying for 300 times a day for 3days!

This is called "the allan houston plan"

pick up as many trade assets as you can as long as they expire by 2007 when H20's 20mil comes off the books. That is Isiah's plan in order to get stars to play with Marbury.

From today's NY Post:
"In three years, after Allan Houston's final season of $20.7 million comes off the books, the Knicks' cap gets no better. They are already committed to $50.8 million, but that's for five players. Without the trades, it would have been $43.8 million."

So what were you talking about 300 times a day for 3 days? The Knicks are still going to be way over the cap even after Houston's contract expires. And do you honestly think that Isiah is going to just let the Knicks expiring contracts expire? How many more bad contracts are we going to take on and for how long are we going to see Isiah hopelessly cap us out?

The whole thing is starting to spiral out of control. There's no plan and now we're left praying for the last picks of the 1st rd to find difference makers. I hate to say "I told you so" but..

When you read the NY Post and NY Daily News ALWAYS double check their material. The year after Houston is done, here are the numbers:

Marb - $20M
Craw - $8M
Rose - $7M
KT - $8M (most likely will be gone)
JYD - $7M (team option)

you can add up the number on your own.

Posted by martin:

When you read the NY Post and NY Daily News ALWAYS double check their material. The year after Houston is done, here are the numbers:

Marb - $20M
Craw - $8M
Rose - $7M
KT - $8M (most likely will be gone)
JYD - $7M (team option)

you can add up the number on your own.

Obviously we won't be under the cap that year. How about the year after?

Marb - $21 M
Craw - $9 M
Sweetney (extension) - $6 M?
Trevor Ariza (extension) - $4 M?
plus however much we're paying for the rest of the guys on the team (our draft picks, etc... become salary once they're on our team).

Realistically, we might not be able to get under the cap until Marbury's horrible deal expires (after the '08-'09 season). Our only hope is that the CBA changes to make the salary cap more reasonable.

[Edited by - Solace on 02/28/2005 11:12:23]

If not for Rose and KT we would have been under the cap.

Thank you IT for addding another year of sucking w/out hope.