I think the reality is that Lee's agent is frustrated, misread the market, and misread Donnie Walsh. Walsh is doing the right thing and Lee will either accept a contract at his market value or accept the one year qualifying offer. Walsh has lots of options in this situation and he is going to take the best option for the Knicks. It is August 11, and no other franchise has attempted to sign Lee to a contract higher than what the Knicks are offering. Walsh knows exactly what he has in Lee. He is not going to give him away and he is not going to overpay him.

So if Lee and Nate play for the QO this year that means you have lost both of them for no compensation. Your will have a lineup of
PG Douglas
SG ?????
SF Wilson Chandler
PF Danilo Gallinari
C Jordan Hill

You will also have zero bench and you think a Lebron or Wade will come and win with that team? I think they should trade Nate or Lee for something instead of letting them play one more year

Posted by King1:

So if Lee and Nate play for the QO this year that means you have lost both of them for no compensation. Your will have a lineup of
PG Douglas
SG ?????
SF Wilson Chandler
PF Danilo Gallinari
C Jordan Hill

You will also have zero bench and you think a Lebron or Wade will come and win with that team? I think they should trade Nate or Lee for something instead of letting them play one more year

Who are you trading them for though and how are you going to do it? If Lee still insists on the contract that he wants, nobody is going to pay him. And why should Walsh take back marginal talent for Lee. Who gives a crap, at this point, about Travis Outlaw and Steve Blake?

The person that needs to budge is Lee and lower is demanded contract. Otherwise, nobody is going to want to give us anything better, nobody will want to sign him and Walsh certainly wont sign him.

I personally think Walsh has been playing this perfectly. Same goes with Nate.

Posted by JohnWallace44:

Trapping players into deals that are below market is not great GM'ing
You don't think that will come back to bite us?

Its not like Lee's value is really $6 million or whatever we're forcing him to sign. If there were an open market he would get much more. Lee and Nate are popular NBA players. That's not going to make other FA's want to negotiate with us.

Who said anything about trapping? From everything we're hearing he's asking for 10 million, which is ridiculously above his market. Signing him to a 32-36 million dollar deal is fair.

This isn't bad GMing. It's called not playing yourself. If Lee and his agent want to be silly, they can go ahead, but that's not going to get Donnie to do business with them. When they come back down to Earth, Donnie will do business.

I wanna be "trapped" into $30M.
Somebody... please TRAP ME!

Posted by LivingLegend:



Because of Lee's base year compensation status we'd only be able to take back 1/2 his starting salary (I believe).

I'd ask for Batum and Bayless and a trade exemption. I really don't have any interest in Blake and Outlaw as we'd likely have to lose both after this year. Batum and Bayless are affordable and have some potential.

if lee got a deal from portland starting at 8-10 mil ny could only count half the starting salary in a trade.

8-10 mil coming into Portland
4-5 mil going out from ny

they have to send back ~10 mil automatically in a trade due to the over the cap rule

bayless and batum (whom i doubt portland is remotely interested in moving anyway) won't work.

it would take several more contracts to find a number over 10 mil that satisfies the byc and over the cap trade rules

As it stands now it's one year.
7 mil if Lee is willing to stay in NY and believed in Knicks futire. Then he can make his decisions later.
QO if he want to get away to some other place. If he will get QO he will became the hottest commodity in NBA and Walsh will have teams lined up to get him.
So it is all up to Lee.

[Edited by - arkrud on 08-11-2009 6:26 PM]

Posted by JayNYC:

Question, why is it that most people assume that David Lee is the Knicks best player?

Who is Knicks best player? Marbury?

our best player isn't good enough to be called a teams' best player.

Posted by arkrud:

Posted by JayNYC:

Question, why is it that most people assume that David Lee is the Knicks best player?

Who is Knicks best player? Marbury?

MARBURY cant escape these forums, lol. Let him be! I can't see Lee as being the guy, for a variety of reasons.. I like him, I think he is effective. But not a go to guy, or a game changer... I think that the Knicks BEST player last year was Al Harrington, Ultimately on both sides of the ball it is Wilson Chandler. His problem... he is inconsistent and cant create his own shot.. needs to take over games, hopefully as he matures it will happen for him!

Posted by JayNYC:

Posted by arkrud:

Posted by JayNYC:

Question, why is it that most people assume that David Lee is the Knicks best player?

Who is Knicks best player? Marbury?

MARBURY cant escape these forums, lol. Let him be! I can't see Lee as being the guy, for a variety of reasons.. I like him, I think he is effective. But not a go to guy, or a game changer... I think that the Knicks BEST player last year was Al Harrington, Ultimately on both sides of the ball it is Wilson Chandler. His problem... he is inconsistent and cant create his own shot.. needs to take over games, hopefully as he matures it will happen for him!

If you are right it is so sad...