It was the two lotto picks we're sacrificing on the small chance that we land LeBron/Wade this summer. Anyone who claims we gained flexibility with the cap space isn't reading the fine print. We're now pressured to sign someone this offseason because of the Hill/Jeffries trade, because we don't have our picks to fall back on. At least before the Hill trade, if we struck out on LeBron/Wade, we had the flexibility to use our cap space to trade for youth/picks, like OKC have done for the past 3 years, and build through the draft. Then in 2011 with Jeffries/Curry off the books, we'd be players in 2011 FA again, with even more youth, our own draft pick, and a better pitch to the likes of Melo. If Melo didn't work out, we could swing a trade with NOH for Chris Paul/Okafor and instant cap-relief.

The Hill/Jeffries trade made this summer LeBron/Wade or bust, and with each news report about LeBron leaning toward staying, it's looking more and more like a bust.

CrushAlot wrote:Jordan Hill(notes) has a future in Houston. In making the deal that sent Tracy McGrady(notes) to New York, the Rockets insisted that rookie Jordan Hill be part of the package, to the point that not including Hill would have scuttled the deal. Hill is rewarding Houston’s persistence. After spending his brief tenure in New York mostly relegated to the bench — he averaged just 4.0 points and 2.5 rebounds in 10.5 minutes with the Knicks — Hill has shown off his potential with the Rockets. In Houston’s last 15 games, he is averaging 8.3 points and 5.5 rebounds. A solid finish to the season could ensure Hill a significant role next year.

“ We just want to see him stay aggressive,” coach Rick Adelman told Sporting News. “He has to be aggressive and go all out all the time. Every rebound, he has to act like it is his. He has pretty much played hard when we have played him, he has defended. We just want to see him show some progression where, the work ethic, every possession, don’t take any possessions off, keep playing. He’s got some skills. He is the only big guy we have who can go up in the air over people.”

Those comments pretty much sums up Hills worth...he has the potential to be a good player probably in the next 4 years. The kids IQ is not that high and he really looks lost at times and at this point is a project. I'm sure he will be traded again in the next year or 2. The Question shouldn't be about why they traded him, but more about why did they draft him that high..

Cosmic wrote:

scoshin wrote:

It's not about the risk. It's about the reward. You take the risk in order to put yourself in position to be rewarded with a greater prize. If we keep Hill, chances are we are stuck with Jared this summer and that limits our flexibility. Aside from the obvious option of going after two Max FA's, now we can make the kind of deals that teams usually don't have the space to make

That's just spin. People tend to forget we already had $23M in cap space before the Jeffries trade, so we already had the flexibility to make deals like trading cap relief for picks/youth.

Which meant we couldn't even sign a max and keep Lee if it comes to that.

So, that would be a failure. We needed the extra 10M cap space to make this thing work.

knicks1248 wrote:

CrushAlot wrote:Jordan Hill(notes) has a future in Houston. In making the deal that sent Tracy McGrady(notes) to New York, the Rockets insisted that rookie Jordan Hill be part of the package, to the point that not including Hill would have scuttled the deal. Hill is rewarding Houston’s persistence. After spending his brief tenure in New York mostly relegated to the bench — he averaged just 4.0 points and 2.5 rebounds in 10.5 minutes with the Knicks — Hill has shown off his potential with the Rockets. In Houston’s last 15 games, he is averaging 8.3 points and 5.5 rebounds. A solid finish to the season could ensure Hill a significant role next year.

“ We just want to see him stay aggressive,” coach Rick Adelman told Sporting News. “He has to be aggressive and go all out all the time. Every rebound, he has to act like it is his. He has pretty much played hard when we have played him, he has defended. We just want to see him show some progression where, the work ethic, every possession, don’t take any possessions off, keep playing. He’s got some skills. He is the only big guy we have who can go up in the air over people.”

Those comments pretty much sums up Hills worth...he has the potential to be a good player probably in the next 4 years. The kids IQ is not that high and he really looks lost at times and at this point is a project. I'm sure he will be traded again in the next year or 2. The Question shouldn't be about why they traded him, but more about why did they draft him that high..

i think people are getting way too caught up in the complaints about losing Jordan Hill & taking it to mean we all believe he would have been the key to a Knicks dynasty... that's not what people are saying at all... the problem people have is how that #8 pick was mismanaged from the get go... whether you liked Jordan Hill or not as a prospect, the fact of the matter is we did not get good value out of that important resource last summer... we picked a guy that got no run in NY & he got subsequently jettisoned in a cap dump & unloaded 2 potential lottery picks along with him... that's not good management of assets any way you want to slice it, not unless you're actually trading those assets to get the player you have your sights set on & he is signed, sealed & delivered... to go into this summer not even knowing what's going to happen is a lot for Knick fans to swallow & just leave up to fate... so again, if this makes sense at all it must be that Donnie has a guarantee that the player he wants is coming here, otherwise it was a bad gamble.

So, after all the melt downs after trading this scrub why is this thread so quiet? I mean when he scored 15 points there was more activity than when our own Gallo was putting up 22/6 during the second half of March.

Oh, wait, now I see why it's quiet: Since the superstar, the future hall of fame Knicks center, dropped his career breakout games:

pts/bds
0/3
8/4
2/9
4/3
3/1

Earl Butterfingers Barron

pts/bds
15/9
8/12
13/12
8/13
11/7

Which meant we couldn't even sign a max and keep Lee if it comes to that.
So, that would be a failure. We needed the extra 10M cap space to make this thing work.

We only needed 3.5M more cap space to cover David Lee's cap hold + 1 max contract. Which could've easily been had in the summer by either buying out Curry's contract and/or trading Jordan Hill to some team under the cap like OKC. I thought a cap guru like you, Cosmic, would see we didn't need to trade Jeffries just to have room for David Lee. Hell, with reports that the cap will be higher than anticipated, we would've definitely had room for Lee + a max in the summer, without the T-Mac trade.

And before Cosmic retorts with more of Jordan Hill's abyssmal stats, I'll just reiterate that I don't care about Jordan Hill. I'm more pissed at not owning our lottery pick for yet another two years.