A player like Lebron could eat too much cap space in Cleveland and hamper their ability to win.

A team like San Antionio who has managed quite well in the past building around Two players role players might be the model going forward. One Max player, one near max, and lots of role players intent on winning.

Old Starphuching like the Celts can also work but your gonna crash and burn at the turn of an ankle.

With the cap shrinking for now I expect some to accept big extensions but might that be at the peril of the team who does it and they get stuck themselves. Sure Wade is the man now and he is really putting up some demands but do teams really want to shackle themselves to some of these guys going forward financially? I suppose if they are tradeable then they can receive value in return. This is where I think Walsh might have some flex going forward.

The other thing is if contracts are shrinking then endorsements become a bigger point for marketable players.

If Lebron goes max with Cleveland he can make more money. If Cleveland cannot affort to go over the cap can they really compete long term. Then Lebron is on stuck. As long as he has an opt out he can hold cleveland or for that matter any team hostage to keep the team competitive. If Dolans juice card is still full we can keep using our MLE and go over the cap. Winning always makes things profitable. Winning in NY makes going over the cap easy for the knicks to be profitable.

So in a way the weak ecnomy might open up some opportunities for the knicks for a myriad of reasons.