Carmelo Anthony Traded to New York Knicks: Why Not Just Wait for Nene Instead?

After the news broke on Monday night that Carmelo Anthony had finally been traded to the New York Knicks, mercifully putting the MeloDrama at an end, one question began being discussed ad nauseum: How did this trade set the Knicks up in terms of championship contention?

And while New Yorkers are too busy lathering themselves in the glory of having two superstars for the first time in what must feel like forever, this trade ultimately puts them no closer to a championship.

In fact, the Knicks’ best option may have been to ignore Melo’s overtures completely and instead focus their sights on a true need: a defensive-minded center. What a coincidence! The Nuggets had that player on their roster all along, too—his name happens to be Nene.

To quickly review Monday night’s trade: The Knicks gave up Danilo Gallinari, Raymond Felton, Timofey Mozgov, Wilson Chandler, Anthony Randolph, Eddy Curry’s corpse, their 2014 first-round draft pick, the 2012 and 2013 second-round picks that they owned from the Golden State Warriors and $six million in cash for Anthony, Chauncey Billups, Shelden Williams, Renaldo Balkman, Anthony Carter and Corey Brewer.

If you would believe ESPN’s Chris Sheridan or Stephen A. Smith, you’d think the trade was a no-brainer for the Knicks. ESPN New York’s Ian O’Connor called the deal “an all-time great move” for New York, suggesting that the Knicks are now one step closer to achieving their championship goals.

But really, are they?

In the NBA, it’s critical to remember that there’s always two sides to any trade: a business side, and a “does this make basketball sense?” side.

This trade is an absolute home run for the Knicks, in business terms. As B/R NBA Team Leader Allen Kim wrote, “For Knicks fans in the Big Apple, tickets will never dip below the $70 threshold for nosebleeds with the addition of Anthony.”

The Knicks needed the tag team of Amar’e Stoudemire and Anthony so they could market a championship contender for years to come, no matter how far removed from reality that may be at the time. And with the league staring at a potential lockout next season, the gate revenues from playoff games have NBA owners already salivating.

That said…the basketball side of the deal says the Knicks just mortgaged their future for one player, and his name isn’t LeBron James.

Last summer, ESPN’s Tom Haberstroh published an in-depth statistical analysis of why Anthony wasn’t an elite player, arguing that Anthony ultimately boiled down to a medium-efficiency, high-volume shooter.

Whether you buy Haberstroh’s argument or not, there’s no question that Anthony hasn’t exactly made his money on his defensive abilities, to say the least. And it’s not like Stoudemire earned his max contract based on his often paltry rebounding numbers.

Knicks fans really want to hitch their wagon to two sub-par defenders, with the “defense wins championships” mantra shining high over last year’s Game 7 in the NBA Finals?

With Anthony now signing a three-year, $65 million extension, the Knicks have approximately $40 million of their cap space consumed by him and Stoudemire every year until 2014. For a frame of reference, this year’s soft cap came in at $58 million. That leaves the Knicks $18 million, barring exceptions, to field the rest of their 15-man roster.

Here’s the fundamental difference between the Knicks’ current cap situation and the Heat’s: When the Miami Thrice joined forces, they all signed for considerably (in the neighborhood of $20 million) less than the maximum contracts available to them. Their signing-for-less gave the Heat the cap room to sign someone close to the mid-level (Mike Miller), sign Udonis Haslem for $4 million/year, and still fill out the roster with minimum contracts.

A good portion of the Knicks’ optimism with the Anthony deal stems from Chris Paul’s toast at Anthony’s wedding this summer, where he suggested that the two of them team up with Stoudemire in New York.

As O’Connor wrote, “The new and not-so-improved salary-cap number could complicate matters to the nth degree, but the Knicks still believe they can find a way to secure Paul, whose reps at Creative Artists Agency are eager to help another client, Anthony, feel home, sweet home at the Garden.”

While that trip to “Let’s-Make-Believeland” was fun, let’s return to reality, courtesy of ESPN’s John Hollinger: “New York still gets its Melo-Stoudemire nucleus, but now lacks the supporting pieces to do anything important with that core. And by extending Melo now, they agree to lock him up at such an expensive price that, in concert with Stoudemire's deal, it likely precludes making a run at Chris Paul, Deron Williams or Dwight Howard in 2012.”

As Sports Illustrated’s Michael Rosenburg wrote, Anthony could have just as easily come to the Knicks during the summer as a free agent, allowing the Knicks to retain some of the weapons they just traded away from him.

Granted, getting to free agency meant Anthony risking tens of millions of dollars with a non-player-friendly CBA rumored to be heading the NBA’s way this summer…but hey, LeBron, D-Wade and Bosh gave that same money up this past summer. If Melo truly wanted to build a championship contender, wouldn’t he have done the same?

A constant refrain from the Melo-trade-defenders, from what I’ve seen, has been: “Tell me the last time Gallinari, Felton or Chandler made the All-Star Game. Mozgov’s 4-point, 3-rebound average is too valuable to give up?” (ESPN’s O’Connor especially tried to hammer this point home.)

True, Anthony started for the West in Sunday’s All-Star Game while the Knicks’ players sat at home all weekend; however, looking at this trade in that short of a term makes little sense.

But, just for kicks: In the short-term, all four of those players had bought into particular roles on the team. Felton was the primary ball-handler, Gallinari earned his money as a spot-up shooter (averaging a career-high 15.6 PPG this season), Chandler was the do-it-all, poor man’s Andre Iguodala, and Mozgov was a 24-year-old, 7’0” rookie with six years of professional experience overseas (a white, foreign, injury-less Andrew Bynum, if you will).

So what if none of those players would turn into the 1A option Stoudemire desired? So what if the Knicks would ultimately be forced to let Chandler walk in free agency this summer?

It’s not like he’s taking his cap hold with him—the Knicks could easily find another small forward and move on with life. (Wasn’t Al Harrington averaging 20 PPG in Mike D’Antoni’s system last year?)

Furthermore, given the New York Post report that Knicks GM Donnie Walsh was all but bumped out of the Anthony deal by none other than former GM Isiah Thomas, the odds of Walsh returning after his contract expires April 30 appear smaller than ever.

According to the Post, Walsh and D’Antoni didn’t want to include Mozgov in the deal, feeling they’d be giving up too much for Anthony, but Knicks owner James Dolan overrode them, with Thomas’ blessing.

Considering that Thomas was the GM who hamstrung the Knicks with miserable contracts in the first place, and Walsh is the guy who just spent the past few years resurrecting the Knicks from Thomas, doesn’t it seem pretty crazy for Dolan to be consulting Thomas here and not Walsh?

ESPN’s Jemele Hill may have summed it up best: “The New York Knicks just figured out a way to give up everything but the coasters for a borderline franchise player and still be a couple of years away from being ready to compete for an NBA championship.”

This all brings us back to the original point: Nene.

Since April 2008, Walsh worked his magic to give the Knicks enough cap space to sign LeBron and a sidekick this past summer. While Walsh’s original plan never came to fruition, landing Stoudemire was a pretty massive coup as Plan B.

And, as Hollinger wrote in his “Melo Trade grades” column, “Even with a franchise tag rule, New York had so many advantages that it was only a matter of time before a second star showed up, especially given the salary cap space the Knicks had carved out.”

So, here’s a thought: What if the Knicks had pursued Nuggets center Nene in free agency this summer, leaving Anthony to the fates?

Had the Knicks signed the 28-year-old Nene to a deal worth approximately $10 million/year deal and given up their rights to Chandler, they’d still have about $9 million in cap space to play with this summer under the current salary cap. Trading Anthony Randolph for a future first-round draft pick would have freed an additional $3 million.

A four-year, $48 million deal seemingly had no appeal to Anthony, yet the Knicks could have signed him to this deal and landed an extra piece that filled the team’s biggest need.

Remember, Anthony controlled his destiny this entire time. If he refused to sign that three-year extension with anyone, and sent a back-channel message to the Knicks telling them he'd sign with them in free agency, new CBA be damned, the Knicks would have no reason to outbid themselves. 

Granted, absolutely no one knows what the new CBA’s salary cap will look like, seeing as the owners and players couldn’t appear to be further removed from an agreement. One thing looks certain: Some form of player salary reduction, whether it comes in the salary cap, rolling back existing player contracts, or both.

Given that, why couldn’t Anthony have waited until the Knicks signed a true defensive center like Nene this summer, then swoop in and grab the rest of the cap space? He may be asked to give up tens of millions of dollars, but didn’t his marketing potential just explode with his move to the Garden? And wouldn’t that potential only increase more by playing for a true championship contender?

If you’re a Knicks fan, which of these lineups do you prefer? Or, more to the point: Which of these teams has a better chance at an NBA championship?

                Option A                                                              Option B

PG          Raymond Felton                                               Chauncey Billups

SG          Landry Fields                                                      Landry Fields

SF           Carmelo Anthony                                            Carmelo Anthony

PF           Amar’e Stoudemire                                        Amar’e Stoudemire

C             Nene                                                                     Ronny Turiaf

6              Danilo Gallinari                                                  Shawne Williams

7              Toney Douglas                                                  Toney Douglas

8              Timofey Mozgov                                              Corey Brewer

9           Shawne Williams                                Shelden Williams                             

10           Bill Walker                                                           Bill Walker

Remember, Knicks fans: Option B certainly has its appeal, and almost certainly makes the team better in the short term.

But it’s the long term for the Knicks that just went on life support when this deal became official. With some variation of Option A only four months away, the Knicks panicked, blew up their team, overrode their GM and just took another one-way, short-sighted trip back to championship irrelevancy with how much they gave up for Anthony.