Revising Revisionism: NY Knicks Didn't Lose J.R. Smith, Iman Shumpert Trade

J.R. Smith and Iman Shumpert succeed on national television, and the second-guessers immediately come out to feast on the New York Knicks' carcass. 

The Knicks dealt both Shump and J.R. to the Cleveland Cavaliers back in January as part of a three-team deal that brought Lou Amundson, Lance Thomas and a second-round pick to New York. Smith makes a few big jump shots, Shumpert shows off some defensive skill and the Knicks have all of a sudden made the biggest mistake in franchise history.

Go on Twitter, type "J.R. Smith Shumpert trade" into your search box, and press enter. You'll find the critics—they're hardly quiet. But that's also quite the revisionist's take of a deal that was actually a contract dump.

The Shumpert-Smith trade wasn't a wild success for the Knicks. But they're also no worse off because of it. Shockingly, more than one team inside the same deal can actually win a trade.

Smith and the two years of almost $13 million remaining on his deal had little-to-no value, especially considering his downtrodden attitude and horrid performance during 2014-15. Actually, the Knicks had to use the half-season they had left of Shumpert, who will be a free agent this summer, just to sweeten a deal that would send him out of town.

Sure, it's fun to jab at the Knicks. It's easy, too.

The Tyson Chandler trade was clearly a bust. (Even if you like the young players, bringing back Jose Calderon's money was imprudent.) Their offense is Jurassic. Their defense is unimaginative. Their roster is unwatchable.

But the jeers about the Smith-Shumpert deal are uncouth.

Jim Rogash/Getty Images

If you're going to knock the Knicks front office for anything involving Shump, go at them for turning down a first-rounder for him last year, failing to capitalize on his value at its highest point. The Oklahoma City Thunder actually offered that to the Knicks before last year's trade deadline, reported by ESPN (h/t RealGM).

But still, that was a past administration.

Phil Jackson didn't take over Knicksland until March 2014, weeks after the trade deadline. And though he may have been communicating some thoughts on team moves during negotiations, Steve Mills was still running the organization at that point. If you're going to be critical of the Knicks front office specifically for Shumpert, leave off the current one, which never lived through a time when his deal was easy to trade.

Half a season of Shumpert—who the Knicks have always been trying to unload in contract dumps and who was being used incorrectly with New York earlier in the season—wasn't as enticing at the time as it seems now.

The Knicks weren't exactly showing off his skill set by letting him handle the ball and make poor decisions. Their suboptimal defensive communication wasn't going to make him look like a whizz as a defender, even if he earned a defensive-minded rep during New York's 54-win season a couple of years ago.

Then, there's J.R.

It's funny the way we rewrite history. Back in January, no one wanted Smith—and everyone knew that. But with the way people talk about him now—He's one of the three best players on a Finals team, they say—supposes the public always had this profusely positive opinion of one of the NBA's most chaotic performers. 

Tony Dejak/Associated Press

The Knicks couldn't give Smith away; they had to include Shumpert just to grease a deal enough to get him out of town for the final year-and-a-half of his contract. So what did the Knicks get for J.R. aside from, as the hysterical Frank Isola likes to call it, "a ninth-grader" in that 2019 second-round pick? Seth Partnow says it well: "They got back not having J.R. for next season."

Knicks fans were dying to get Smith out of the New York locker room, aching to get him away from the young players and eager to ship him as far away from 1 Oak as humanly possible. Smith even admitted that some of his improved play has to be attributed to the lack of nightlife in Cleveland in a brutally honest quote, relayed by David Aldridge of NBA.com:

"

I think [Cleveland] is the best situation for me, 'cause there's nothing but basketball. There's nothing you expect but basketball. There's nothing, there's no going out, there's no late nights. There's video games, basketball and basketball. So it's a great thing, 'cause I go back to where I came from.

When I grew up, I never, I wasn't allowed to go out. I missed my prom because I went to an AAU tournament, and all that stuff. For me, it was basketball, basketball, basketball. And then when I got in the situation where I was at an early age, it was more, alright, let me see what this life is about, as opposed to just keep going. So now, I get the chance to get back to my roots.

"

We haven't learned anything about Smith since his resurgence in Cleveland. It's only confirmed everything we already knew.

He does well in good basketball situations. He doesn't do well in bad ones. We've seen it time and time again. His performance arc in New York is the perfect microcosm of that.

Plus, there's the extra cap space Smith's absence provides.

The 17-win Knicks weren't going to be competitive this year. Chances are, even if they have a forward-thinking offseason, that's not happening next season, either. So what have Knicks fans intelligently called for all year? Cap space—and lots of it.

Brad Barket/Getty Images

No one sells hope like the Knicks.

Clear as much cap space as possible, get a high draft pick and sign some big names. Maybe they won't be great this year, but a couple of years down the line, they could be amazing!

But now, that same contingent is looking at the NBA Finals, seeing a few former Knicks there and wondering why in the world its team gave away those players for little value. But it wasn't little value.

Smith was set to make $6.4 million next year, $6.4 million which is no longer on the books for 2015-16. And packing up Shump, who we got no indication the Knicks were hoping to re-sign, also wiped out his cap hold, freeing some more space.

The Knicks will now have more than $30 million in cap room come July 1. But know this: You can't freak out about prioritizing cap space, then go nuts again about a cap-clearing deal. It doesn't make any sense. And let's not forget that on top of all this, the Knicks were shifting into tank mode at the time of the deal.

Role players are role players for a reason. It's because they fit specific roles. They're not great in every situation. If they were, they wouldn't be role players at all. They'd be stars.

From a Knicks perspective, it doesn't matter how Shumpert and Smith perform in Cleveland. It wasn't happening in New York. 

The J.R. threes weren't hitting nylon in his old role. Shump, meanwhile, is in completely different spots on the floor now than he was with the Knicks, basically becoming an off-ball, corner-three shooter, which makes him a fitting complement next to LeBron James and puts him in an opposite supporting part to the one he played as a ball-handler at Madison Square Garden.

More so than many other sports, basketball is about context. Not all situations are created equal. You can plug the same player into two completely different equations, and he can produce opposite results. We're seeing that in the improved play from Shumpert and Smith. But just because they're playing well now doesn't mean they were highly coveted five months ago.

Follow Fred Katz on Twitter at @FredKatz.

Unless otherwise noted, all statistics are current as of June 5 and are courtesy of Basketball-Reference.com and NBA.com.