FanPost

What's the Free Agency Situation For Next Year, GM?


Step 1: Find what's available.

Step 2: Find out how much cap we've got to work with. Ask the boss if he wants to pay luxury tax.

New York Knicks

Salary: $68,336,691
Cap space: -$8,336,691

-Probables $64,392,331: Carmelo Anthony; Amare Stoudemire; Tyson Chandler; Renaldo Balkman; Iman Shumpert; Toney Douglas; Jeremy Lin (RFA, Arenas rule, presumed MLE signing).
-Players in flux not included: Bill Walker (UFA, Bird rights); Mike Bibby (UFA); Baron Davis (UFA); Jared Jeffries (UFA); Steve Novak (UFA); Landry Fields (RFA, Bird rights); Josh Harrellson (nonguaranteed min); Jerome Jordan (nonguaranteed min).
-First round picks $0: Rockets receive the Knicks pick (top 5 protected in 2012).-Minimum salary spots $3,944,360: (5 * $788,872).

Cap space is gonna be like 60 mill. we're 8 in the hole. We've got 12 spots to fill. Renaldo's contract counts in 2012 even if we did buy him out in 2011. Not to mention JR smith's signing. So we have 5 x 800,000 to fill 5 slots. JJ and Novak are going to want a raise. Now we've got 3 more spots. Oh forgot about Landry. 2 spots left.

We need a backup PG, and two more Jeffries-like bigs.

Enter the overlooked (college draft, really low low on the totem pole)

Crowder and Jones are exactly the types of forwards we need. One is a 6 6 rebounding shooter. Think Landry having a baby with Carmelo. One is a 6 10 rebounding defensive rim post protector. (think Ibaka).

In conclusion: WE CAN'T KEEP EVERYONE.

We could bet big on Landry. Take out JR smith. Grab one of the many PGs in free agency, specifically Nash cuz he can teach Lin how to be a true PG and Landry+Shump on how to be a combo guard. Now here's the ugly part. We toss Novak and Jeffries away and try to bet big on some of the younger draft members who produce really well but have the crime of being 'short' or not 'versatile'.

Starting unit: Lin, Landry, Carmelo, Amare, Tyson (you'd rotate Crowder+Shump with Landry+Amare instead of the usual Lin+Landry with Nash+Shump.)

Second unit: Nash, Shump, Crowder, Jones, JJ

2 Point guard unit: Lin Nash Crowder, Carmelo, Amare

if Amare gets injured again, There's enough depth to cover for him. We've got JJ, Novak, and TD to cover injuries, be role players.

So goodbye Jerome Jordan, goodbye Jorts, goodbye Bully, goodbye JR smith, goodbye Baron.

Problems: Yes w'ere missing a 6th man. We're also highly over our cap. And Nash might die at anytime from being old...I don't know, experienced healthy PGs are always going to be costly. It's a bullet you got to bite.