I think with the demise of AR as part of our future, we can end the "we have to release Chandler" talk?

Are the capologists factoring in AR no longer on the roster freeing up an additional 3 mill (same as Chandler salary?)

babyKnicks wrote:so simply renouncing Chandler and we can sign melo? Then including him in a trade to Denver is a no brainer?

depends on the cap situation in the new CBA, but if everything stays pretty much status quo, then yeah we could probably squeeze Melo's contract in if we let Wilson go... we might have to let Walker & Williams go too, but those guys can be replaced.

the other option is to trade Gallo & AR for expirings & picks to free up the cap hold for Wilson & maintain the cap space to offer Melo a max contract... so either way you look at it, if we want to get Melo here, we're gonna lose either Wilson or Gallo & AR realistically.

fishmike wrote:you lose Chandler to sign Melo. You also lose any other cap space, so you have zero chance of improving your frontcourt unless to trade someone like Fields and Gallo. If your going to do that however you might as well just make a package of Fields, Chandler, Gallo and use Randolph for that pick and trade for Melo now. Take Harrington's contract back and ship them Azu's expiring. Thats everything they are asking for:

Walker is your new SG and here's your Melo (we can now be elite because we have a 2nd star) Knicks:
PG Felton
SG Walker
SF Melo
PF Al Harrington
C Amare
bench: Williams, Douglas?, Mosgov
No cap space left... your really hoping Jerome Jordan is the next bigman thats going to keep you from getting pushed around in the paint every night

How did we end up losing fields, gallo and Chandler again? That's kind of crazy. IMHO fields is a goner

babyKnicks wrote:

fishmike wrote:you lose Chandler to sign Melo. You also lose any other cap space, so you have zero chance of improving your frontcourt unless to trade someone like Fields and Gallo. If your going to do that however you might as well just make a package of Fields, Chandler, Gallo and use Randolph for that pick and trade for Melo now. Take Harrington's contract back and ship them Azu's expiring. Thats everything they are asking for:

Walker is your new SG and here's your Melo (we can now be elite because we have a 2nd star) Knicks:
PG Felton
SG Walker
SF Melo
PF Al Harrington
C Amare
bench: Williams, Douglas?, Mosgov
No cap space left... your really hoping Jerome Jordan is the next bigman thats going to keep you from getting pushed around in the paint every night

How did we end up losing fields, gallo and Chandler again? That's kind of crazy. IMHO fields is a goner

I see 3 scenarios we end up with Melo. Feel free to add your own. This is less my opinion and more just what makes sense.
1) we trade for Melo sooner then later outbidding the Nets. That will cost us a package similar to what the Nets are offering. So your trading Chandler/Fields/Gallo/AR either to the Nugs or to other teams for picks and using Az/Curry contracts for cap relief and taking a guy like Harrington back

2) Melo says no to resinging with the Nets and the Nuggets panic and take a lowball offer from the Knicks. Maybe something like Gallo, Azu, Curry and a pick (from trading AR) for Melo and Harrington. Pretty reasonable and best scenario as we would keep (resign) Chandler and Fields keeping most of the team intact

3) we sign Melo as a max FA. To do that we need to recind the bird rights on Chandler, Azu and Curry as we dont have cap space until their cap holds are removed. The problem there is Chandler goes for nothing and your still a small team w/ Amare at center, Melo or Gallo at the 3/4. Knicks are going to get pushed around night in night out

TMS is right that you will lose someone to get Melo even if he comes via UFA. The best scenario for us is trading him for Curry, AR, TD and others not including the starting 5. Some will argue that it is not enough to get him here but as time passes and Denver is getting more desperate, it will become clearer what we can steal from Denver.

fishmike wrote:

Allanfan20 wrote:Fishmike, you're right and the more you think of it, the more it might even hurt the franchise by giving up so much for a guy who might give you an easier time scoring. He's not going to improve the team by THAT much though and lift us past Miami/Boston/Orlando. Not without frontcourt help.

This isn't going to work out in our favor. And no, Carmello at that price would not be much of a trade asset.

A Melo/Amare/Felton team will win a lot of games. Not as dominant as the Heat but they will be good because there will be nights when 2 of those 3 guys will simply light you up. I would say thats a 50 win and 2nd round team. That puts you in the Hawks zone. Good aned talented, but not big enough or great enough to get to the finals. That date is reserved for teams that are HUGE, play elite defense as Detroit did a few years ago

Yup. We basically become the Nuggets 3-4 years ago. The Melo/Billups/KMart/Nene group was very good but they did not have enough in the depth chart. We can potentially have a great team here if we elect not to give the starting 5 and add Melo into the mix. We can really be special.