KP4Life wrote:Maybe that's why they aren't playing Willy or Dotson?
The Knicks have a glut at the pivot. That's why Hernangomez is not starting. Dotson is a ROOKIE. Good way to mentally fry a prospect is to throw them into the fire too early. Top rated high lottery picks are one thing, a more fringe 2nd round guy, even if he has some nice tools, is another.
Kanter has close to no trade value. OKC tried to trade him from the time they signed him to that bizarre contract. No other team wanted him, not at that AAV and that contract status. I doubt they will want him now ( except to move a bad contract) Teams needing veteran help at the deadline, many are cap locked. Moving players that can help them now for a pivot who can't defend the rim and can't space the floor is not a good decision. He will also opt in in the offseason, he won't see that kind of money again, not with the landscape of teams and their projected cap space. He limits a new teams flexibility.
Lee the issue is the Years 3 and 4 of his contract. He is useful, but not going to push a team over the top. Same problem applies, the teams that can use him the most are going to be up against the cap. If they move a bad contract and an asset, sure, that's possible. Or as a pure salary dump by the Knicks. But he doesn't produce at a rate that is going to make the gamble look good in Year 3 and 4.
Many teams are into the luxury zone coming this offseason. They aren't going to go deeper into the tax zone for Lee and/or Kanter.
Hornacek is coaching for his job this year. He knows this team just isn't going to cut it defensively. So he'll try to outscore other teams and Kanter gives him at least some offense. He'll need to take the 8th seed to keep his job, and so he likely won't make it. He's really auditioning for his next coaching opportunity, which means Bakers success is going to be huge for him, or not.
Kanter has close to no trade value. It's why he was available in the first place.
At a previous Sloan Sports Conferences, there was an interesting discussion about "legacy conflicts", which focused at the time on the NFL and the Cowboys and Panthers, who took a problem, then forwarded that problem and compounded it into the future.
Not aggressively signing Jeremy Lin. Getting Ray Felton ( again) Dumping Fatty/Gun Runner Felton for Jose Calderon. Dumping Calderon and losing Robin Lopez. Signing Noah and Lee were creating legacy conflicts. To dump them requires positive outgoing assets or taking in more legacy conflicts for the future. If you inherit one, that's one thing, but you don't keep self generating them. Perry INHERITED Noah. That's one thing. Flipping Kanter and/or Lee and taking in another problem doesn't help this team.
The trade in place has to be the BEST out of all available options to the Non Knicks team. The Opt In for Kanter and the back two years of Lee are really complicated in that regard.