Sangfroid wrote:TripleThreat wrote:Nalod wrote:One has to ask would he demand minutes or open to earning them? His beef was with Jeff and his minutes.
His "beef" is he wants 100 percent of his contract face and then play for Thibs and the Timberwolves.
He's dogging it and being a locker room problem on purpose. Luol Deng is doing the exact same thing in LA.
The Knicks are a "cash rich" team, but at some point, this has to be a matter of principle. If Noah would be willing to leave massive cash on the table, the Knicks might buy him out.
The best hope here is the Timberwolves get caught tampering. That Deng and Noah are both doing it at the same time isn't some wild coincidence. There aren't too many conditions in which the league administration can void a player contract, tampering is one of them.
The question is, what qualifies as "massive"? This is Noah's last, big payday and I'm sure he doesn't want to give half of it back. If they stretch him, it's still 27 mil, just longer to get there. I see him being around another year, then being moved as an expiring. No Melo magic here...
Half the remaining contract. Basically on a cash basis, wipe out the 4th year.
Noah is not being transparent about what he is doing. The NBAPA usually puts pressure on individual players and agents to not give up too much cash in a buyout, but this is different. This is more akin to a Rip Hamilton/Baron Davis/Eddy Curry situation. The opposite spectrum ia situation like Mike Bibby, who gave up 6 million to join the Heatles and got massive pressure from the NBAPA not to do it. But Bibby was a well liked player and a solid lockerroom guy. Where the longer Noah stays on the Knicks roster, the greater the long term damage from a labor perspective. The owners don't forget things like Rip Hamilton turning into a long term ****heel and actively trying to sabotage a team so he can play somewhere else. The NBAPA won't care at this point how much Noah gives back.
Eddy Curry didn't just screw the Knicks, he screwed every player he played with and every future player to ever play in the NBA. The middle tier player is disappearing from a salary perspective. That didn't just happen for no reason. The stars still get paid, but the middle class type player in terms of salary is starting to get phased out.
At some point his agent Bill Duffy is going to have to pressure Noah to take a larger type hit on a buyout. This is bad for business for him as well. Part of an agent's responsibility is to manage things about their contracted players where the NBA and franchises can't really go into and be seen near.
Are the Knicks a well run franchise? No, but this is just entirely disgraceful. There is no excuse for what Noah is doing right now.
7/13/2018 1:36 AM