Is Scott Layden hallucinating?

Gary Payton. Pau Gasol. Shareef Abdur-Rahim. What do these guys all have in common?

Over the last week, the Knicks have made a very public trade offer for each of them. What are the chances of any of these guys actually ending up in New York? Zero.

At this point, according to league sources and a published report in Newsday, the Knicks don't even have a shot at landing Keith Van Horn anymore.

Gary Payton
Point Guard
Seattle SuperSonics
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2002-2003 SEASON STATISTICS
GM PPG RPG APG FG% FT%
51 20.6 4.8 8.9 .448 .688


So why do we keep reading about all of these wild Knicks trades? Several GMs I talked to have their theories.

"Scott's really under the gun over there," one Eastern Conference GM told Insider. "His team is bad shape and right now; he's selling hope. He knows he can't pull off a deal like this with his roster, but if he can convince the public he tried, maybe that will be enough."

The other rumored trades, Gasol or Abdur-Rahim for Spree, were equally ridiculous. The only thing that appeared to have any real legs was the rumored Keith Van Horn-for-Spree deal.

Hardly. The New York Times today called the Knicks' offer of Charlie Ward and Kurt Thomas for Payton laughable. According to the Times, the Sonics quickly shot down the offer. Can you blame them? If nothing else, the Sonics would get cap room this summer. The only thing the Knicks could do with the Sonics is send them Ward and Thomas for Vladimir Radmanovic, Calvin Booth and Vitaly Potapenko. However, according to the Seattle Post Intelligencer, the Sonics aren't even willing to move Radmanovic at this point.

Latrell Sprewell
Guard-Forward
New York Knicks
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2002-2003 SEASON STATISTICS
GM PPG RPG APG FG% FT%
44 17.5 3.3 4.4 .411 .788


However, two NBA GMs with knowledge of the situation said that talks ended Tuesday with both sides claiming they were the ones that walked away from the table.

According to Newsday, which is also reporting that the talks are dead, 76ers coach Larry Brown told reporters he expects to have the same team when the deadline passes. "We've been talking to people for months, but only if it would improve the team," Brown said. "I would anticipate having our team intact."

That basically leaves the Knicks with one last rumor, the potential five-team deal with the Warriors. Given the complexity of getting something like that done, it looks like Knicks fans are in for a crash landing with reality around 3 p.m. Thursday.