It's kind of "shady dealings." Walsh can agree to a trade for Lee or Nate with someone and have a team draft someone they want and just complete the trade at a later date.

basically, because they are technically free-agents, we can't trade their rights at the draft because players cannot be signed until july 9th (i believe).

however, they are restricted free-agents, so we can match any offer sheet they sign during that period.

a team that might want to sign an offer sheet to either, or both of them (hypothetically) could also be a team the knicks might try to do a sign-and-trade with using lee and/or nate we can get back other signed and traded free-agents or already signed players from the other team or more than one other team.

good question about byc, but it must be that this kicks in only after the signing period ends or something like that.

there's that salary cap faq which probably explains this, but i've never heard of byc interfering with sign-and-trades for just signed players. it's only the season after they are newly signed that byc seems to exist to prevent a player from being signed by a team and then traded that same year a few months later.

now i'm confused...lol

here it is explained:

http://members.cox.net/lmcoon/salarycap.htm#Q76

Under no circumstances can a team sign and then trade another team's free agent. But there is a rule that allows teams to re-sign their own free agents for trading purposes, called the sign-and-trade rule. Under the sign-and-trade rule, the player is re-signed and immediately traded to another team. This is done by adding a clause to the contract which stipulates that the contract is invalid if the player's rights are not traded to the specific team within 48 hours.

A sign-and-trade deal can be made even with players who have been renounced, but cannot be made when the player is signed using the Mid-Level, Bi-Annual or Disabled Player exceptions. Sign-and-trade contracts must be for three years or longer, but only the first season of the contract must be guaranteed. The three year minimum (even though the last two seasons may be non-guaranteed) ensures that the new team will not acquire Bird rights to the player any sooner than if they had signed him directly, because they would have to waive him, after which they wouldn't be able to use Bird rights (see question number 25).

One complication with sign-and-trade deals is that the signed player can immediately become a BYC player (see question number 73 for more information on BYC), so the player's BYC value must be used when determining whether the trade is allowed.

If a sign-and-trade contract contains a signing bonus, then either team can pay it. By default the team that signs the player pays the signing bonus (as with any other contract), but since a sign-and-trade is in essence a contract with the receiving team, the teams can agree that the receiving team will pay it. However, any portion that is paid by the signing team counts toward the $3 million limit for cash included in a trade (which in effect limits the portion of a signing bonus that can be paid by the signing team to $3 million).

If a sign-and-trade contract contains a trade bonus, then the bonus is not earned upon the trade that accompanies the signing, but rather on the first subsequent trade.

See question number 80 for more information on how long a team must wait after signing a contract before they can trade a player.

[Edited by - PresIke on 05-19-2009 12:12 PM]

now reading it more closely, you might be right, crzy.

maybe i'm misunderstanding, but if lee or nate get any starting salary for 2009 with a 20% raise (seems more likely for lee) they will get byc status immediately.

this leads me even more to think we will either let lee go or keep him, and more likely will use nate in a sign and trade who earns more and is probably a bit less valuable.

if am understanding this correctly if he gets anything over around 3.5 mil a year next year he can't be traded to a team over the cap.

i seriously hope i'm wrong about this, because it then sounds like perhaps we are going to let them walk if they get offer sheets too high, or they are staying and can't be moved until summer of 2010 after their byc goes away.

you hvae to figure both players will get more than a 20% raise than what they can make with their qualifying offers (which for lee is 2.6 and nate 2.9 mil).

[Edited by - PresIke on 05-19-2009 12:24 PM]

good observation about the byc status length, crzy.

i didn't see anything in BYC status about one-for-one deals.

basically...my current assessment is...

we are unlikely to sign-and-trade nate and lee this summer because if they get a 20% raise above the qualifying offer (lee - 2.6 mil, nate 2.9 mil) they IMMEDIATELY become BYC players, meaning they can only be dealt to teams with cap room (no?).

since both are probably going to get AT LEAST a 20% raise it sounds more like it will be:

A) Either we sign them first, or match any offer sheet if we determine it's worth keeping them
B) Let one or both walk if we don't want to pay that much for their services

I can see the draft lotto tonight playing a big role in determining this, but more key is thinking whether whatever salary/contract they want/can get is going to be something that can be either worth seen as okay for keeping them on the team or being tradeable after their BYC status ends (after 6 months, which would be january if they sign in july).

So, this makes me think that there can't be, say, a sign-and-trade of Lee & Late for someone like Bosh because T.O. is over the cap, and they would become BYC if we gave them raises to match Bosh's salary.

in other words, this entire situation with lee and nate is pretty high stakes for the knicks future if you ask me, but the way walsh is approaching it makes sense, and says a lot about how the previous mismanagement has really killed the team (as well as the ridiculousness of the nba's cba).

the lotto tonight is also hugely important, even though our chances are terrible.

we need a friggin miracle...please!


[Edited by - PresIke on 05-19-2009 12:40 PM]

Posted by Allanfan20:

Posted by nyk4ever:

It's kind of "shady dealings." Walsh can agree to a trade for Lee or Nate with someone and have a team draft someone they want and just complete the trade at a later date.

Almost impossible. Nate and Lee still have to agree to go there, and the two of them aren't allowed to even talk to other teams before July. There's no way it can happen.

If you want to get a younger player, you're going to have to sign and trade them and take on one of their contracts, which will hopefully be an expiring. Who's going to do that though? I doubt many teams.

+1

Posted by TMS:

shoulda traded them at the deadline last year like i said... now we're handcuffed bigtime... Lee & Nate not only have to agree to where they're being traded to, but the Knicks also need to find a team willing to give up a usable asset in the process for someone they can simply offer a FA contract to sign if they want them... it's not gonna be easy to get a good deal done over the offseason... the only realistic way to get good value now is if they sign both these guys & trade them before the deadline next year, but even then they have to make sure they sign both guys to reasonable contracts that will be tradeable, & both players have to be productive & stay healthy up til that point... basically you're taking a huge risk that you'll be stuck w/both contracts on the books past the deadline & thereby fugging up your 2010 plans in the process if u sign them to FA contracts this offseason.

i have no idea what Donnie was thinking when he didn't trade those guys last year when he had the chance... we could have gotten some picks & expirings for them, or at the very least a quality player who could have factored into next year's plans i'd have to assume... he really may have cut off his nose to spite his face on both those decisions.

in the offseason year 2010, a TON of teams will have cap space that will be able to absorb Lee or Nate if the Knicks still have them and want to get rid of them. No worries.

Posted by martin:

Posted by TMS:

shoulda traded them at the deadline last year like i said... now we're handcuffed bigtime... Lee & Nate not only have to agree to where they're being traded to, but the Knicks also need to find a team willing to give up a usable asset in the process for someone they can simply offer a FA contract to sign if they want them... it's not gonna be easy to get a good deal done over the offseason... the only realistic way to get good value now is if they sign both these guys & trade them before the deadline next year, but even then they have to make sure they sign both guys to reasonable contracts that will be tradeable, & both players have to be productive & stay healthy up til that point... basically you're taking a huge risk that you'll be stuck w/both contracts on the books past the deadline & thereby fugging up your 2010 plans in the process if u sign them to FA contracts this offseason.

i have no idea what Donnie was thinking when he didn't trade those guys last year when he had the chance... we could have gotten some picks & expirings for them, or at the very least a quality player who could have factored into next year's plans i'd have to assume... he really may have cut off his nose to spite his face on both those decisions.

in the offseason year 2010, a TON of teams will have cap space that will be able to absorb Lee or Nate if the Knicks still have them and want to get rid of them. No worries.

of course there's worries... like i said u gotta make sure u sign both those guys to tradeable contracts & both guys have to stay productive & healthy until they get traded... & who's to say that any teams w/cap space will wanna help us out by taking their contracts off our books? don't u think those same teams will be after the big names that offseason too? why would they settle for players like Lee & Nate when they can spend those dollars on better players & not have to give up any assets in order to do it? that's not realistic.