Bad Romance
The notion of cap dumps is exciting for many, but whether such trades will be possible this offseason has been a topic of some disagreement, so I took a closer look.
News & Notes
We got Kira Lewis’ measurements courtesy of Jonathan Wasserman:
6'1.5" socks
6'3" shoes
6'5" wingspan
Weight: 180 lbs, up 15 lbs since college
Not bad. Lewis has already been among the hottest names leading up the draft, and the confirmation of his increased weight should only help him rise further.
According to Jonathan Givony, LaMelo Ball is currently only planning on interviewing live with the teams that pick 1-4. As for the Zoom interviews he already conducted, yesterday Rick Bonnell echoed something I reported earlier this month, which is that Ball has not been impressing teams during these sessions.
“Sources Say…”
We’ll see if it comes to transpire, but I’ve been told the Knicks are looking at buying an extra second round pick in the upcoming draft. I also know that they’ve been spending time recently doing homework on likely undrafted free agents. It seems as if they are taking this whole “draft and develop” thing quite seriously.
As for what they’re looking for in potential prospects, I was again told that play making and shooting are far and away the top priorities.
Listen Up!
Speaking of Mr. Wasserman, he joined me to talk about the draft on the latest episode of the KFS Pod. I threw every manner of tomfoolery his way, and he dutifully answered every inquiry. You’ll have a much better sense of what options will likely be available to the Knicks at all their picks after listening. Check it out here or subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
Read This:
Jonathan Wasserman’s latest piece on emerging draft rumors is a good companion to today’s pod.
Watch This:
I chatted with Matt Brooks about all things Knicks last night. We had more than a few laughs.
Ask Macri
I think the playoffs will always be a place where smaller players get exposed, but this is a situation where perfect is the enemy of the good.
No, Flynn and Winston are probably not the sort of guys who should be playing 30 minutes in a Finals game, simply because their offensive arsenal doesn’t make up for the potential of getting targeted on the other end. That said, I’m not sure there’s ever been more of a premium with having multiple guys on the court who can make and execute smart decisions with the ball in their hands, and both of these point guards certainly qualify.
In the regular season especially, having a competent backup point guard who can also play minutes alongside your starters - and both of these guys certainly qualify - is only going to increase in value.
Bad Romance
Why, oh why, didn’t the Knicks take on bad money for future draft assets!!!
The Knicks royally screwed up their offseason last summer in several ways. The roster they assembled was at best poorly suited for the coaching stylings of one David Fizdale and at worst a clunky mess under even the best of tacticians. Even less ideally, it was full of high usage guys who took opportunities away from the younger players while simultaneously failing to amplify whatever burgeoning talent they possessed. It was, in short, a bit of a mess.
But the pearl-clutching that occurred specifically as a result of not taking on roster dump trades, for me, was always a bit much. The pick dealt by Golden State to unload Andre Iguodala is probably the biggest missed opportunity (T4 protected in 2024, unprotected in 2025), as Klay Thompson will be 34, Steph Curry will be 36 and Draymond Green will be sumo wrestling Charles Barkley on Inside the NBA.
So yes, the Knicks screwed the pooch by signing Bobby Portis instead of taking on Iggy, but on the list of egregious errors the Mills/Perry regime made over 2+ years, I’m not sure this makes the top 10.
Aside from that though, we had the Moe Harkless trade, which netted the Clippers Miami’s 2023 1st rounder (raise your hand if you think that’s going to be a juicy one) and the Grizzlies getting De’Anthony Melton and two seconds for taking on Josh Jackson. This was good deal, and also better than anything else the Knicks did with their money, but again, not one I’ve lost much sleep over, relatively speaking.
If anything, the reason a bunch of people (some of which were Knick fans) were so aghast at the way New York’s front office handled free agency had less to do with the results themselves and more to do with the process behind it. The Plan B guys got an F, and it was clear by early November that the architects of this roster did little more than look on the backs of a some basketball cards to pick the players they ended up with.
That’s the same reason why so many fans were overjoyed by Ian Begley’s recent report that Leon Rose is open to taking on bad money in the right deal. For them, whether they actually do it or not is less important than the thought behind it. I imagine this is like being a woman who has been in many terrible relationships in the past, and then finds an ugly engagement ring in the gym bag of her current boyfriend, whom she adores. Of course, even better would be a really nice ring to go with the really nice man.
Cue Samantha to the rescue (and gold star to the seven of you who got that reference)!
Unlike my friend and colleague Jeremy Cohen, who just detailed several very sensible reasons why the salary dump market will be a tepid one this summer, I think there will be at least a few deals to be had, and maybe more depending on what happens over the next week.
Follow me here for a moment:
The NBA wants to start the season on December 22 instead of Martin Luther King Jr Day nearly a month later, in large part because it will mean an estimated $500 in additional basketball related income for the league. The players are already pushing back.
In addition, the NBA is already estimating that it will see upwards of a 40 percent drop in revenue next season.
Thanks to the money lost last season, the league needs to arbitrarily inflate the cap to $109 million, because if it set the cap number based on the existing math, that would leave it at just $90 million. That means the league will have to make up a $500 million difference on top of the $500 million it might lose if it starts the season later than they’d like and the additional billions (with a “B”) they’re going to lose thanks to no fannies in seats.
The trickle down effect is that teams are going to be losing money en masse for the next several years, as the league has already stated its desire to arbitrarily inflate the cap next year as well, likely to $115 million. If you’re keeping track, that means by the end of next season, they’ll have some $5 billion to make up for by arbitrarily lowering the cap in future seasons. In the meantime though, that’s money the owners are losing.
Balancing the scales won’t be a huge problem as long as they keep finding ways to bring in income, the largest source of which is television money. In other news, even putting aside the “avert your eyes” level ratings from the bubble, TV ratings have been steadily declining for some time now. Someone will still pay a hefty fee for the right to televise NBA games, but it may not be the cash cow that it was the last time they negotiated a deal.
The league is whip smart and on the cutting edge of finding emerging revenue streams, but there’s no guarantee if and when those will be available.
In short, wallets are hurting, and they may continue to hurt for the foreseeable future. Every situation is different, and some owners - like the recent buyer in Utah - have zero financial concerns that would impact how they run their NBA franchise, which has become like a fancy sports car to the Balmers and Cubans of the world.
But there are fewer owners in that category than you might think, and while Jeremy’s larger point - that we won’t see many, if any, outright salary dumps happen over the next month - may wind up being correct, there’s a good chance that the current financial climate is going to impact how some teams operate.
This gets us into the nitty gritty of Begley’s initial report. He said that “the Knicks are open to using their cap space to take on undesirable contracts.” When people hear “undesirable contracts,” they think about Mozgovs and Biyombos and Mahinmis (oh my!), but as Bobby Marks correctly pointed out, the sort of toxic assets we saw following the summer of 2016 - where a team is paying five or ten times what a player is worth over the course over several years - are now rather scarce.
They’re also not nonexistent. Jeremy mentioned the big four of Wiggins, Westbrook, Horford and Wall, and I’d probably add Tobias Harris. As I wrote about yesterday and as Jeremy pointed out, for a variety of reasons, you can usually only move one of those contracts for an equally hefty deal, which the Knicks don’t have.
After them, your “bad money” market is filed mostly with expiring contracts and a few two year deals. Jeremy beautifully detailed the reasons why teams are unlikely to pay the price of a draft pick to outright dump many of these, and in most cases, I agree with him completely.
There are, however, a few nits I’ll pick in light of the dire financial situation I laid out above. Moreover, I think if the Knicks are more creative in the types of trades they’re open to, they may be able to benefit in some way, shape, or form, even if it’s not your traditional salary dump situation. In no particular order:
Taurean Prince ($12.25 million this season, $13 million next season)
I agree that the shrewdest move would be for Brooklyn to use this as part of the outgoing salary in a deal for a helpful player and just add a draft asset to the cost of doing business, but my guess is that the Nets are going to wind up doing business with a small market team (the latest rumor I heard - which I’m not comfortable reporting in “Sources Say…” but which I think shouldn’t be ignored - involves DeRozan, but I’d still put Jrue Holiday as the most likely candidate).
Point is, San Antonio, New Orleans or whoever may seriously frown upon the idea of paying good money to a player who doesn’t help them win games. If the other cap teams (Charlotte, Detroit, Atlanta) are as dead set on improving in the immediate future as we’ve heard, New York might be Sean Marks’ only option.
Who says no to Reggie Bullock, 27 and the worse of next year’s Charlotte/Detroit second rounders for Prince, 19, and Brooklyn’s 2021 first?
Al-Farouq Aminu ($9.7 million this season, $10,2 million next season)
Evan Fournier - $17.15 million (Player Option)
I think the Magic are going to look to shake things up, because they have to. I also agree with Jeremy that there’s nothing good out there to spend their money on. Finally, I think they’re one of the teams whose balance sheet matters very much to them. Call it a hunch.
I’ve pitched Aminu trades before that involve getting a draft asset of some kind in the deal, but those probably aren’t realistic in a two-team scenario. Perhaps instead, a team that has an expiring contract of a decent player they really don’t want but also aren’t willing to pay a price to dump sends that player to the Magic, with New York taking on Aminu and a pick. Orlando could also send out a player (Aaron Gordon, perhaps?) and take on a bigger salary, like a DeRozan or someone of that ilk.
As for Fournier, I wonder if the Magic would be interested in something like Bullock and 38 for his expiring contract and the 45th pick? New York gets a far better player that could also be flipped at the deadline, and Orlando gets out of the contract, but can justify it with a slight upgrade in the draft.
Kelly Oubre - $14,375,000
Patrick Mills - $13,535,714
Cody Zeller - $15,415,730
Similar to Fournier, I’m looking at these three guys not as outright salary dump candidates, but as helpful players the Knicks could take on for very little - a future protected second round pick, perhaps - so their teams can simply save a bunch of cash this season.
Of the three, I put Zellar as by far the most likely candidate, as I’d bet on Charlotte ending up with Wiseman on November 18. Mills is my favorite of the group, and the Spurs need to start giving more time to their younger guys. As for Oubre, one would think the market on him will be slightly frothier than this, but you never know. Doesn’t hurt to ask.
Why would the Knicks do any of these? To help them become a competent basketball team, that’s why. Absent Chris Paul, that’s going to be a monumental uphill task this year, and I can pretty much guarantee you that these three dudes are better at their price point than anyone Leon Rose is going to be able to sign on a one-year overpay when free agency begins.
James Johnson - $16,047,100
The Johnson-and-a-pick-swap-for-Randle trade has been discussed so much that it went out of style and is now back en vogue. It’s like denim.
Cory Joseph ($12.6 million this year & next; 2021 guaranteed for $2.4 mil)
I think the Kings are itching to move up in the this draft, and if I’m the Knicks, I’m absolutely seeing how I can entice them to pay the biggest price possible to do so. Yesterday on Twitter, I pitched this craziness:
It’s probably a bit much, but you get the point. These teams are comfortable dealing with each other, and I think Joseph can actually help the Knicks as a solid if unspectacular point guard who knows how to run an offense.
And finally, everyone’s favorite expiring dead weight:
Cristiano Felicio - $7.53 million
I no longer think it’s insane that LaMelo Ball drops to four. If he does, I’m not sold on Chicago running to that virtual podium. So how about this: Felicio & 4 for 8, 27 & DSJ?
Admit it: it’s got you thinking.
That’s all I got. I think there are some more out there, but the point is that New York should be thinking outside of the traditional “salary dump” box when considering the notion of taking on less-than-ideal money. In the spot they’re in, they need to be as creative as they can get.
That’s it for today! Belated Happy Birthday to my man Kevin McCloud! See everyone on Monday with a special announcement. #BlackLivesMatter #VOTE
So, a straight trade for Westbrook doesn't make sense. If we are going to take on bad contracts, let's swing for the fences! Trade Portis, Peyton, Knox, DSJ, Randle, No. 8 & 27 2020 picks, + Dallas 2021 pick for Westbrook and Harden! Houston gets cap relief, some young assets, and recover a few picks! They aren't going anywhere with the current team and need to rebuild. Knicks get hope and maybe some real interest from a good FA next year. We have to eat the Westbrook contract as part of the deal and tell him upfront that he may not start, we only took him to get Harden; take it or leave it! My 2 cents! Good luck!