Knixkik wrote:
He's the ideal fit ...
The other issue is the role would change.
He would be, by default, the Knicks primary offensive option.
He can create his own shot. Can he do it consistently night after night with teams bracketing him on defense. His defense is interesting in that he's actually not a bad defender. But it's a series of compromises and tradeoffs because he's not an elite athlete ( relative to the NBA). He plays smart for sure. But if you make him the primary offensive option, how will that shade his defense?
Every player has value in context. If Noah was a Knick back in the day on a 2 year / 6 million dollar contract, that's not so bad. But for the years and money he got, he was an anchor around this teams neck. Was I ever a fan of Trey Burke? No, but at least he came cheap and with little commitment.
The Knicks can only really see value if they only sign him with the intent to soft loophole the cap. But they aren't the ideal team to do this or want to do this.
Here is where things get interesting because the current CBA is not designed for a COVID19 "new normal" type marketplace environment.
You sign a guy to a heavy one year deal. You do a buyout where you still deal with cap hit implied, but the cash hit variable changes. Since the heavy one year deal is one that no team will want to claim on waivers, a guy like Gallo goes free and becomes a ring chaser. A contender can't pay Gallo even close to market rate money ( the nature of a contender is usually a roster that is cap locked or in the luxury zone) Gallo makes more money than he would by outright signing with a projected contender but still gets to pick his team AFTER some of the season shakes out and he can see a clearer view of the field/options. The team who signs him would do this to get to the salary floor on paper, but actual cash moving can be far far less. Also Gallo is useful player so that gives you a little burn early in the season to help next years season ticket sales.
The Knicks are a cash rich team, so doing something like this does not help them
But the Atlanta Hawks? They have really poor attendance even before COVID19. They are not anywhere near the Knicks in terms of generating revenue. Hitting the cap floor but with cash savings as a way to stall until COVID19 settles out some isn't such a horrible look in some circumstances.
"Renting" your open cap space in trades for draft picks is the normal strategy, but how many teams are going to want to trade their picks in this environment? Teams are going to want to shed salary, not add it LONG TERM, so those rookie contracts take a different cost control spin.
The more teams are incentivized to do this, the value of veteran players, who are not the elite top 15 type of guys, begins to diminish. It can become a cycle that compounds upon itself.