The Knicks view this as their shot to be relevant. We may feel that the price is too high, but if they let this opportunity pass, then we might end up with another Ewing situation and I don't think they want to get stuck like that again. You can't compete with the Heat, Magic, Bulls or Celtics without firepower. My guess is that they feel they can survive without Timo and bring in a C like Barron to help inside. It's not about Timo, Gallo was the players that really put this over the edge in terms of assets given up. If it was Timo instead of Gallo, no one would be complaining as much. So we gave up Chandler, who wasn't coming back anyway, Felton who was likely a 2 year rental, Timo who hasn't fully developed and is still a ?, AR who we didn't want anyway. The Knicks don't care about the 2014 pick.
GALLO is the only guy that really meant something in terms of value going forward. This is what we would have in terms of guaranteed contracts next year:
Amar'e will make 18.2
Melo has an option for 18.5
Billups will make 14.2
Turiaf 4.3
Douglas 1.1
Walker 916,100
Rautins 788,872
Fields 788,872
They would be at about $58.8 mil. They could decide to cut cost by not keeping Billups or just ride it out one more year. The new CBA will be very important for how they look to build the team going forward. Still it's clear that this team is gonna have to live with low cost options all over the roster. They're gonna max out on the top 3 spots. Maybe they get Melo to restructure his deal to look like Amar'e who started at 16 mil this year.