mrKnickShot wrote:3+ years left. Amnesty gone. What can be worse at this point than that signing? And, not saving the amnesty for him? I am not blaming all these injuries on him because they were not necessarily his fault but this is fast becoming the next H20 disaster.
Some things in the Knicks favor,
1) The Arenas and Lewis contracts were moved, well for each other, but they were moved. I think it's proof any contract can be moved. But the conditions are usually a bad contract in return or you need to add in young players and picks for someone to take that bad contract. Right now if the Knicks were willing to give up Lin, I'd say you'd have 20 teams willing to take the STAT contract ( Lin is worth an easy billion to any franchise for the next ten years)
2) STAT is a big. He's not going to shrink. That's huge for value, even declining value. If you look at teams, they weren't cashing out their bigs, even the Warriors held onto Biedriens.
3) STAT is not a deficient long range shooter. I would not call him elite, but I think he can mold himself into a part time overpaid Stretch 4 power forward. He would need to improve his jumper a lot, but it's not like he's starting from scratch.
4) If STAT can't play anymore, while his contract isn't insured, the CBA has a provision for guys who medical out, meaning the Knicks could possibly avoid the last two years of his deal for salary cap purposes.
If the Knicks were willing to take 50 cents on the dollar, the Suns might still take STAT. STAT played his best with Nash, they have the noted best medical/training staff in the NBA that have prolonged the careers of Nash and Grant Hill, STAT knows the franchise already, his contract boils down to what they originally wanted, a 3 year deal, if he doesn't pan out, he's a two year clunker then a valuable expiring deal with the hope he might rebound his health enough to help Nash again and they would shed the bad contracts they picked up trying to replace STAT.
http://games.espn.go.com/nba/tradeMachine?tradeId=boyeaqk
STAT
Toney Douglas
for
Hakim Warrick
Jared Dudley
Josh Childress ( Ugh...)
Channing Frye ( Welcome back home son)
Melo can slide to power forward and Dudley can stick at small forward ( Pesky defender, good offensive rebounder, high energy player, good BB IQ, can hit the three ball)
Frye can be the backup center and give you the three ball to space the floor and block shots. He's not going to help you on a fast break and has some limitations defensively. He's not going to clean the glass like you'd like, but maybe Melo's stronger rebounding can mesh well with him.
Warrick can play the low post and give you a little defense in the paint.
Childress can give you some offensive rebounding and gives Landry Fields someone to chat with about Stanford. Not sure what he is other than a guy rotting on the bench with a bad contract.
If the Knicks evaluate that STAT is done, but not done enough to get a medical out, then they get a starting small forward, some front line depth, some smaller bad contracts that might be easier to move than one large one, and at least get some assets that will play versus sit on the injured list the rest of his contract. Maybe a change of scenery will help both groups of players.
3/26/2012 10:06 PM
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