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Hello, friends. Good morning and good week to each of you. Things are still relatively quiet in Knicks world, but there are a few updates and rumors out that are worth mentioning.
- Marc Berman reports that the Knicks met with Steve Nash for three hours on Sunday, giving him a tour of the training center and explaining how they intend to offer him "up to $8 million per year". The idea, as you've surely heard, would be to package some combination of Landry Fields (after signing him, I guess) and/or Toney Douglas and/or whatever other small, dispensable salaries (Dan Gadzuric? Jerome Jordan? Josh Harrellson?) would be needed to even things out. Wary as I am about the Knicks and their medical staff investing in a 38 year-old with a spine condition, a deal that does not include Iman Shumpert is soooooo much more palatable and less frightening than one that does. It'd suck to lose Fields, but that's how trades work. (Update: Important reminder from Alan Hahn: Fields, along with Nash, would have to agree to the sign and trade, so there a lot of moving parts to this idea.)
- Whatever Toronto's offer to Nash is (the ESPN guys say $36 million, but Berman keeps being like "Nuh-uhhhh, it's less."), it's a much more lucrative offer than the Knicks'. That's the important part. The idea of a trade instead of a straight signing must be more appealing to the Suns, though. We shall see. I assume this is still a long shot.
- Berman's other report today is that the Knicks will target Anthony Tolliver if they can't hold on to Steve Novak for some reason. Tolliver's a similarly sized player who doesn't shoot nearly as well as Novak does, but can do pretty much everything else better (they are of equal caliber in Midwestern-ness and ex-D-League-ness). Even when Novak re-signs, I'd be curious to see how much Tolliver's asking.
- Of course, the Knicks will probably just sign Novak. Berman does say that "nearly a dozen" teams have reached out to Novak, but oddly doesn't name one. I also haven't seen mention of a single specific team talking to Jeremy Lin. I'm sure he's getting calls, but we just don't know from whom, which seems weird to me.
- I had a dream last night that the Knicks signed Earl Clark to a four-year deal. Upon joining the Knicks, Clark changed his name to Lamont Blocks.
That's what's going on. I'll update and post more throughout the day as needed. I hope you're all well. Did you get those brunch buckets I sent you? I sent you all brunch buckets. They're just pails of brunch buckets. It occurs to me that I don't know any of your addresses, so I'm not sure they all made it. I just guessed for the most part.
Update (2:50 PM): Marcus Camby's name is one to keep in mind, but isn't a likely match. He likes New York and likes Glen Grunwald, but also wants to start and wants to make as much money as possible.