Posted by Cash:
I am not really interested in getting rid of the few assets we have in lee, jamal, nate, balkman, etc, simply for cap space. We have an owner who is willing to spend money, and if that is done correctly, that is not necessarily a bad thing. There is no guarantee a superstar would come here, especially if this team totally sucks, and especially with the nets invading the new york market.
I'd much rather trade jamal for picks and a similar contracted player with less talent in order to get more young players. We already have one great shot at a high pick this year, and a likely high shot at a pick next year. Lee, nate, balkman(all very young) can complement these players. I think this is especially true, because guys like nate and lee have shown the propensity to improve their game in the offseason. At the moment, I would predict there value is going to go up in the future. We wouldn't be getting as much as we could for them.
The hard part of this is--I like Lee--I DO NOT want to trade Lee--but Lee--to me represents the BEST value on the whole team. I think Jamal has brought his value up along with Nate but none more so than Lee because right now he makes a little over a mm $. The fact is Lee is WORTH more than the MLE and if there are multiple teams with good cap space David Lee is going to get a fat contract offer IMHO. The Knicks have to weigh this possibility--where some team might overpay to the tune of 9-10mm per[because you always overpay in FA] If we start paying Lee that 9-10mm along with potentially Crawgord and with what is on the books[how can we speculate getting rid of zach unless we
a. take on the same or close$$$
b. give up our lottery pick in conjuction with trading him out
The problem here is we have 3 frontcourt players who do not defend well---I do not believe that they can co-exsist.
