Man. I'm really on the fence on this one. I mean I put up a whole 'why we should consider dealing for Zach Randolph' thread a couple of months ago so this is definitely something I've considered before. Zach's talented but, right off the top, I agree with ya nyk4ever, I don't think he works next to Curry. Plus, I know, his contract is atrocious. But like him or not, he's 20/10 every night and he's still pretty young. But now if you kick in Martell Webster... Hummm. I mean there's our SF right there for the next 15 years. He's a young, big, strong kid (6'7", almost 225 lbs.) and can shoot the lights out. Doesn't look like he's gotten steady burn over there with the quick emergence of Brandon Roy and all, but the kid's good. If we can still hold onto our pick at #23, I think I might do this. I'm not ready to call Frye garbage, but I'm not that impressed with this kid, to be honest. I thought we we're getting a much better player. So no big loss there. And Malik is just filler. I gotta believe Pritcard wants to dump that contract in the worst way. That's why Isiah, if he's even entertaining this, DO NOT surrender that pick. I even try and swap 1st rounders with Portland. I mean, how bad do they want to unload that contract, you know? I bet Pritchard would crack. I bet he's the one who called Zeke and initiated this thing. Might have to include some more filler by the Knicks to make the math work but, Jeeeez, I might do this. If we did this we'd look something like this (key components):

C - Curry/Randolph Morris
PF - Zach Randolph/Lee
SF - Webster/Q-Rich/Balkman
SG - Crawford
PG - Marbury/Collins/Nate

Now we retain our pick - if not no deal - (hopefully we squeeze the 18th pick from Portland outta this, if not we're still OK at #23) and instead of going for the shooter, now I definitely look hard at Sean Williams if he's still around for interior defense. If not, I guess I'd have to look at some of the PG talent who might still be on the board, like Gabe Pruitt, even though I really wanted to look at next year's draft for a future PG. And again, like I keep saying, nobody loves Lee more than me, but with a scenario like this (Zach Randolph and possibly Sean Williams now Knicks) it opens up the possibility of trading Lee, not to just get rid of him, but because you can get SOMETHING PRETTY GOOD for Lee.

Very interesting.... I can't wait for tonight!

the only way to justify taking on a contract like that is if you're getting a true franchise calibre stud in the process... Zach isn't worth capping your franchise out for the next 5 years for.

Yeah, you're right TMS. It's just that if you throw Martell Webster's name into the mix AND we get to keep our pick, it makes you start thinking, you know.

Posted by Finestrg:

Yeah, you're right TMS. It's just that if you throw Martell Webster's name into the mix AND we get to keep our pick, it makes you start thinking, you know.

i'm not that crazy about Martell Webster, so it's not that hard a decision for me... i would only take on Zach's contract if i was also getting a young guaranteed stud or top 5 lottery pick in the process... obviously neither is a realistic option, so we need to pass on players w/bloated contracts from now on... we have to learn from our past mistakes.

NBA TV just reported this deal as well.

Zack Randolph, yuck. This guy is a bad guy.

Posted by Bonn1997:

Posted by Pharzeone:

NBA TV just reported this deal as well.

Reported it as a done deal or just a rumor?

Reported it as still being worked on. Says it could get done during the early part of the draft. They say stay tune to see if it goes down. Interesting this and the KG Suns trade is the only trade that they mention. So I assume it has some legs.

The NBA TV analyst said that it was a bad trade for NY. Curry and Randolph on the same team shouldn't happen. No defense.

I think the hold up is that the Knicks want to keep their pick and still want Webster. Thomas must be smoking the herb too.

Posted by Swishfm3:

wow...I don't like that contract, but I like the player.

I am surprised that Portland is willing to give up Webster AND take Francis.

LOL!, That's what I'm saying Swish! You gotta at least think about this for a couple of reasons. Consider this:

(1) Zach's contract is awful (it's Dolan's money though, let's not forget) and it runs a total of 4 more seasons. Then he's off the books. Now in a perfect world with him and Webster joining some decent pieces we have in place here already, I'd hope that would be 4 years of deep playoff runs and making some noise in a subpar Eastern Conference. And say we don't do this - is everyone around here really confident we'll be in great shape cap-wise 4 years from now? I'm not. I mean how can you be? Not with all the pointless signings that we've seen around here recently like Jared Jeffries, Big Turd, etc... Bottom line is Zach's 20/10 every night (basically the player we all hope David Lee will become one day, skill/numbers-wise) and he's young - think he'll only be 26 or 27 this July. Barring injury, we're talkin' a guy that's currently in and will still be in his prime for the life of the contract. Like him or not, and I don't love him, he is one of the top power forwards in the game.
(2) Webster's gonna be a stud. We're talking the 6th overall pick in the 2005 draft (2 slots ahead of Frye). Shit, he might be better than Roy in the long run. A better scorer at least anyway. This is the shooter we've been looking for since Houston went down. I don't know about Zach playing next to Curry (but quite a few think Jermaine O'Neal would work with Curry, so isn't this kinda the same thing), but I KNOW FOR A FACT that Martell Webster would be perfect out there next to the big fella.
(3) What are we really giving up? Frye's been a disapointment so far (I really question whether this kid really has the fire in his belly to get better) and the rest would just be filler. I mean Steve Francis? Don't let the door hit you on the way out pal.

As long a Portland doesn't decide to get too greedy with us, I really consider this fellas, I'm sorry.

Just another source

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=2919929