New York Knicks' Tanking Blueprint to Get Franchise Back on Track
J.R. Smith and Iman Shumpert are gone. The losing may now begin.
Or rather, continue.
Shipping out Smith and Shumpert for fodder and cap space—a move first reported by Yahoo Sports' Adrian Wojnarowski—has put the New York Knicks all in on this season's tank-fest. Phil Jackson approached 2014-15 thinking his team could compete for a playoff spot. Circumstances have since changed for the worse, so he re-charted New York's course, for the better.
Hopefully.
"As our journey moves through this season, we will search for the type of players that fit the style we hope to exhibit for our fans," he said in a team statement. "Our desire is to improve our ability to compete. In addition, these transactions improve our flexibility to the current roster and the salary cap for future seasons."
Additional cap flexibility in hand, the already last-place Knicks have ferried themselves to the point of no return. They are no longer operating under the assumption—farcical or genuine—that they can win anything immediately. And, as a result, there is no turning back now.
There is only delving deeper into the process, following the necessary steps that put them in position to survive these turbulent times while ensuring they aren't for naught.
Shut Down Carmelo Anthony
1 of 5
It's been talked about time and again. It's been debated to no end. According to Wojnarowski, the Knicks themselves have even been pushing for it, only to face resistance from the subject of said debate himself, Carmelo Anthony.
Now, despite what Anthony himself may think or feel, the time has come for it to actually happen: Anthony needs to shut it down.
A sore knee has been bothering him for some time. Though he's tried to play through it, Anthony has vacillated in and out of the lineup. When he actually does play, he's visibly favoring his aching lower limbs. His forays into the paint are neither as forceful nor as frequent, and he hasn't shot 50 percent from the floor since Dec. 9.
Laboring through the pain might be considered admirable on a championship contender, or even a fringe playoff team battling for that eighth and final playoff spot. But the Knicks are no postseason-bound squad. They're the worst team in the league right now, traveling nowhere fast, this time by design.
All Anthony succeeds in doing by playing is putting himself at risk of further injury while padding the win column for a Knicks faction that should chase losses. Prospective star free agents also won't find appeal in a hobbled Anthony. A rested and relaxed scorer is something they can be sold on.
If, by some chance, Anthony goes through the motions—rest, surgery, spiritual healing sessions conducted by Jackson—and he's able to return before 2014-15 is out, that's something the Knicks can consider. Sitting into next season, 10 months from now, isn't ideal for a star pushing 31.
For now, though, Anthony can help the Knicks more from the bench, as a symbol for piece of mind and pingpong-ball opulence.
Trade Jose Calderon
2 of 5
Roster-razings of this kind need to be done right, and the Knicks are only one Jose Calderon trade away from completing theirs.
Tim Hardaway Jr., Pablo Prigioni, Cleanthony Early, Anthony and Calderon are the only Knicks players under guaranteed contract beyond 2014-15. They'll combine to make roughly $34.2 million next season, leaving the Knicks $32.3 million below the projected $66.5 million salary cap for 2015-16, before factoring in draft picks and cap holds.
After accounting for the necessary minimum cap holds and the salary of their future first-round pick, the Knicks should be left with upward of $27 million in spending power this summer—assuming they decline team options on Quincy Acy and Travis Wear.
Flipping Calderon for an expiring contract—or empty space—trims around $7.4 million from the payroll, increasing the Knicks' spending capacity even more, giving them as much as $34-plus million to burn through. That, for the mathematically challenged, is almost two max contracts worth of plasticity.
Undoubtedly aware of this, the Knicks are ready to trade Calderon, as well as anyone not named Carmelo Anthony, per Bleacher Report's Howard Beck and CBS Sport's Ken Berger
(Begins Photoshopping Marc Gasol and Goran Dragic into Knicks jerseys.)
Moving Calderon, of course, isn't a given. Few teams will be inclined to sink $7.4 million into a player on the wrong side of 33 who mans the league's deepest position and doubles as a defensive detriment. The Knicks could also cut into this summer's financial free-for-all by using one of their two trade exceptions to absorb unwanted, long-term salary from other squads, diminishing the appeal of dealing Calderon.
Still, Shumpert's and Smith's departures suggest the Knicks are hoarding cap space like it's 2010. And absolute, superstar-scouring flexibility being the goal, they're better off parting ways with the point guard who, at this point, is more financial albatross than valuable court commodity.
Rest the Elderly, Work the Young
3 of 5
There is no reason why Cole Aldrich, Shane Larkin and Hardaway shouldn't lead the Knicks in minutes played per game over the next half of the season.
Coach Derek Fisher has been given the gift of experimentation. The Knicks have been playing trial and error for a while now, but with Jackson's latest redirect, Fisher is no longer under any obligation to roll with those who don't figure into the long-term plan.
Amar'e Stoudemire and Andrea Bargnani don't need to see court time. It's not the Knicks' responsibility to drum up—or, for that matter, possibly destroy—their free-agent value. There's also no point in taxing a guy like Prigioni, who is cheap and serviceable to remain part of the bigger picture, yet old enough to the point where the Knicks shouldn't exploit his boundless motor when they're not playing for anything.
Instead, the Knicks should see what they have in some of their fringe-future prospects. Can Aldrich be more than a one-year placeholder? Did the team make a mistake not picking up Larkin's third-year option? Is it possible for Hardaway to be molded into a triangle star? Can Early function within this offensive system, expand his passing and improve his on-ball defense?
Taking it one step further, the Knicks should also take advantage of the NBA's Developmental League. There are plenty of D-Leaguers they can look to evaluate, but two of their own stand out above everyone else: Langston Galloway and Thanasis Antetokounmpo.
Jackson apparently views Galloway as the ideal triangle point guard, per the New York Post's Marc Berman. And if that's the case, the Knicks should give him burn at the 1 over Prigioni and Calderon. See if he is, in fact, the right combination of feisty defensively and deadly—as a spot-up shooter—offensively.
Antetokounmpo, though still green offensively, is the aggressive perimeter defender the Knicks don't have. He blocks shots (1.8 per game for the Westchester Knicks) and forces steals (1.4), and he knows how to use his length when attacking the basket.
Not every aspect of an entire team can be assembled through free agency or even future drafts. The Knicks will preferably push forward with some incumbent talent—from the D-League, the active roster or otherwise. The rest of 2014-15 should be about finding which current players fit the system and, subsequently, their future. (So, not Jason Smith.)
Stay the Course...of Losing
4 of 5
Tanking is the Knicks' only play now. There is little value in trying to improve the roster and salvage what's left of this season.
Such a temptation is there, to be sure. The Knicks play in the Eastern Conference, home to futility and, therefore, hope. Even now, at 5-32, with the league's worst record, pacing themselves toward 11 victories, the Knicks are "only" 11 games back of the final playoff spot.
Fortunes turn quickly in the East. Any day now, a potential playoff team—say, the Brooklyn Nets—could hold a fire sale that torpedoes its postseason chances. Armed with a couple of trade exceptions, the Knicks could, theoretically, try to make a splashy move that somehow vaults them back into the playoff conversation.
Beck says they haven't given up on this season and are prepared to remain active. Berger has them targeting Oklahoma City's Reggie Jackson via trade. But, save for offloading a financial heavyweight like Calderon, there's more to be had from standing pat.
Never mind that Jackson is scoring almost as much on his own (15.3) as the Knicks' three point guards are combined (20.3). More than 82 percent of his made baskets have gone unassisted, and he's shooting just 34.2 percent outside eight feet. He's a ball-dominant point guard who isn't fit for the passing-packed triangle.
More importantly, him—or someone like him—could add victories, and the Knicks shouldn't want wins. They're in play for a top-three draft pick right now, meaning that Jahlil Okafor and Karl Towns—two potential big-man fits for the triangle—are at stake.
"That’s far more impressive than another middling season, another hollow No. 6 seed in the East," writes the Sporting News' Sean Deveney. "When it comes to rebuilding, a Top 3 pick is a lot more valuable than a Top 8 playoff seed."
No matter what the Knicks do from here on, the playoffs are probably out of reach. That, though, isn't cause for concern or resistance—it's cause for staying the current, loss-loaded course Jackson has paved.
Endure for the Sake of Avoiding Another Tailspin
5 of 5
Patience is the most pivotal part of the Knicks' obviously free-agent oriented rebuild.
Fisher and Jackson must show a willingness to test youngsters. They must be prepared to adapt and manipulate—or perhaps entirely ditch—the triangle if it proves outdated. They must preserve cap space.
Most of all, they must be patient.
Impulsive, reactionary moves are what brought the Knicks here, racking up losses in volume, looking for a path out of purgatory. When they whiffed on their top free-agent targets in 2010—LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh, etc.—they settled for Amar'e Stoudemire. And then they overpaid for Anthony. That cannot happen again.
In the event that Gasol, Dragic and any other top targets cannot be poached from their respective teams, the Knicks shouldn't resort to expensive, slipshod contingency plans. They will have to cut their losses and move on, focusing instead on in-house development and the 2016 free-agent class headlined by Kevin Durant.
"So Jackson needs to come up about as big in July as his buddy Pat Riley came up in 2010, when Riles dropped his rings before the then-uncrowned King, James, and put together a recruiting class to end them all," ESPN New York's Ian O'Connor wrote of the mounting pressure in New York. "Jackson has a lot more rings to drop on the table than Riley did. He needs to dazzle someone with the glare."
Yes and no. Years from now, free-agency coups—or the absences thereof—will be the standard to which Jackson is measured against. But his latest actions cannot become harbingers of him doubling down on this year's crop of available talent.
Pigeonholing the future of an entire team to one summer that, in all likelihood, could be an empty, unimpressive one is never palatable practice. The Knicks must see this offseason as nothing more than a steppingstone, not a final, future-framing venture.
They must prove that, for the first time in a long time, they're not above the price of process.
.jpg?w=600 "Colts Release Kenny Moore")
