Why Knicks Should Trade Amar'e Stoudemire Before the NBA Draft

gmf1369

Benchwarmer
After playing together for a season-and-a-half, it’s apparent that Melo and Amar’e don’t possess the chemistry necessary to take the Knicks to the next level. Their exorbitant salaries also make it virtually impossible for the Knicks to afford to surround them with the pieces necessary to build a championship-caliber team.

One of them needs to be traded, and Amar’e is the obvious choice.


As noted, Melo is the better defender of the two and is more versatile offensively. He has greater range on his shot, is quicker off the dribble and is able to play the 3 and the 4. He also possesses a different skill set than Chandler, who, like Stoudemire, scores most of his points off the pick-and-roll.
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Melo’s game is better suited for Coach Woodson’s offense. Unlike D’Antoni, who built his offense around stretching the floor and running the pick-and-roll, Woodson prefers to feature his scorers in the post and with isolation plays.
At the age of 28, Melo is in the prime of his career, whereas Amar’e, though just a year older, is breaking down. He suffered such severe knee injuries early in his career that the Knicks were unable to insure his $100 million contract, and he’s missed several games due to back injuries during his two seasons in New York.

This past season, Amar’e lacked the explosiveness that had made him such a potent offensive force. Unable to get any lift on drives to the basket, he had his shot blocked at an alarming rate and averaged just 17.5 points per game, the lowest since his rookie season.

The best time for the Knicks to move Amar’e would be before Thursday’s NBA draft. The trade market heats up prior to the draft as team’s look to add or unload draft picks and position their rosters and finances for free agency.
The Knicks don’t have a pick in the first round of the draft, and general manager Glen Grunwald may be able to use Amar’e to acquire one. Trading Amar’e could also free up money for the Knicks to offer to a veteran free-agent point guard like Steve Nash.
Trading Stoudemire won’t be easy, though. Teams will be reluctant to take on an uninsured contract worth $64.4 million over three years for an injury-prone player whose skills are in decline. But if Gilbert Arenas and Rashard Lewis have taught us anything, it’s that no player is untradeable.

Grunwald’s best bet is to find a team with plenty of salary cap space that would benefit at the box office from a marquee name. He may have to take some bloated contracts back in return.


The Knicks' organization and their fans should be grateful to Stoudemire for turning around the franchise, but there’s no place for him in the Knicks’ future. This is Carmelo Anthony’s team now. Grunwald needs to try and trade Amar’e this week.

Read in Entirety: http://bleacherreport.com/articles/...hould-trade-amare-stoudemire-before-the-draft
 

p0nder

Starter
I'd be amazed if the knicks traded stat. it's just not gonna happen. They need to find ways to make this work, trading is the "quick fix" eay route. This team isn't about that **** anymore.
 

gmf1369

Benchwarmer
Amare

Lin

Melo

are not going anywhere anytime soon.

Welcome to reality

Are you management?

Welcome to reality!

This is a article written by someone else, I posted it here!

Perspective of fans and RESPECTED COACHES ALLA PHIL JACKSON, state that these two players WILL NOT SUCCEED together, that is reality and no matter who tries to sing like a canary and state otherwise is living in a dream world.

Melo and Stat are set in their ways, can they evolve and learn new things, maybe but will they willingly do it - most likely, NO!
 

Sage

Rotation player
Finding a team that will deal would be the issue. I'd be all for getting rid of him and freeing up that cap, but I can't imagine a team wanting him.
 

nuckles2k2

Superstar
David Kahn is sitting back, waiting for a trade that makes no sense, so he can jump all over it.

I'm pretty confident that he can be sold on the idea of having an "explosive" big to play center, and run the 15 PnR, with Rubio.

Give us Peković, one of their 4 million wing players, and a salary dump. I'll take Nikola's hustle on the boards, and how he just smashes into the paint, seals his man off, and can make that easy baby hook. He doesn't need plays run for him (or more importantly, one specific play over and over) to be effective. He plays D, he rebounds, he can play a more traditional PF, and let everyone else operate in their comfort areas.

As long as there are dumb-dumbs in the world, there will be easy targets to fleece. Yea it sounds cruel, and it's kinda unfortunate...but ****...it's reality.

You have to go pursue these deals tho, they don't come to you (unless Otis Smith is the GM.) Glen needs to blow up Kahn's cell phone right now, and sell him on one single idea, the explosiveness of a Rubio-Stoudemire PnR. That's it. It can't hurt.

By the way....I'm back.
 

NYk_Reloaded718

★KNICKS-TAPE★
Are you management?

Welcome to reality!

This is a article written by someone else, I posted it here!

Perspective of fans and RESPECTED COACHES ALLA PHIL JACKSON, state that these two players WILL NOT SUCCEED together, that is reality and no matter who tries to sing like a canary and state otherwise is living in a dream world.

Melo and Stat are set in their ways, can they evolve and learn new things, maybe but will they willingly do it - most likely, NO!
No...im clearly not Management, but im Smart enough to REALIZE, Stat just came off one of his worse seasons and his Value is complete GARBAGE at the moment, honestly if you were GM in this league would YOU trade for Amare? is his 100 mill uninsured contract, bad knees, and bad back worth it? is PHIL Jackson some kind of Fortune teller? to say that Amare and Melo wont work together? he has his rights to say they wont, hell they have yet to prove they can work together thus far, does that mean AMARE STOUDEMIRE is getting traded before the draft or during free agency? no Melo, Stat, and Lin weather we like it or not will be Knicks this upcoming season.

Can they evolve to learn new things? wake up, Stat is trying to develop a post game, Melo is trying to get in better shape (reportedly lost 12 pounds i believe) so you cant say they aren't willingly trying. Give this team a full training camp to work out the Kinks and we see where we go from there if it does not work this season. THEN i have no doubt some moves may be made and they can really question them selves about whether it'll work.

People been saying trade state since last season? (including myself) Guess what the guy is still here.

I don't see why people bother to read Bleachers report thats like the worse place to go, it's just full of rumors, wishes and trashy articles about a whole lot of NOTHING.

Finding a team that will deal would be the issue. I'd be all for getting rid of him and freeing up that cap, but I can't imagine a team wanting him.
THIS basically sums up everything, even if you WANTED to get rid of Amare, Nobody is taking on that contract, especially not with the way he performed this previous season. If your going to make any moves with Amare it would be best to wait till he can somewhat increase his value again.
 

nuckles2k2

Superstar
Except, it seems like a long shot that he'll be able to regain the value he had when the team was comprised of completely different parts.

We can't have either Melo, or STAT acquiesce to the other. But for STAT to regain what he had when he first got here (if at all possible), we'd need Melo to just space the floor, open up the lane for the PnR, and shoot jumpers.

We saw that Melo, even out of shape, is at he best when making occasional forays into the paint, and operating down there, then he supplements it with the jumper. That's directly interfering with STAT setting the pick, and rolling, if Melo is bringing his defender closer to the cup, while you gotta assume Tyson's man is somewhere in the vicinity.

So it has to be "your turn, my turn, your turn, my turn" and annihilate any sort of ebb and flow.

STAT's value IS what he can do with a good PG, and some high PnR. Instead of waiting on him to possibly regain value, sell another team on the idea of STAT on their roster, running the PnR. If you're trying to sell something to someone, you make them invasion the item in their possession, not "see what I have, you want it, right?"

I do agree that it's a tough sell, but still....there is a David Kahn in the NBA, we need to take advantage of that. Right. Now.
 

Tokie420

Benchwarmer
Amare isnt tradeable. His actions in the miami series and his recent conduct on twitter will make teams think hes becoming a headache. Add that with the bloated uninsured contract he has not to mention the helth problems...So yea, can we stop over valuing this guy already and can we give up this silly notion that hes easily tradeable.
 

Wargames

Starter
Amare can be traded but the only chance the knicks were going to do it was before they won the arbitration and keeping Amare was likely going to hinder the team going forward.

There is no need to move him when they can in theory keep their core, Keep the majority of Mobb deep, and still add more assets to improve the team overall.
 

nuckles2k2

Superstar
No one is saying it's an easy trade, at least I'm not, I actually said it's a tough sell.

But to just say "oh well...it's not gonna happen, cause it's a tough sell" is insane. Did we not see Nene just get a contract that was called a bit inflated, and then get traded....while having an injury riddled season? Gilbert Grape Arenas had a ravaged knee, over $60M left, brought guns into the locker room...and then was traded. Yea they might have had insurance on the contracts (not sure about Gilbert, but I see no reason why Nene didn't) but folks act like teams don't have to pay the premiums on the policies, and I don't know if they understand that you're still on the hook for a portion of the player's salary. Insurance on a contract is not a "get out of jail free" card, so while all teams would love to have some insurance on huge contracts, it doesn't alleviate them from paying portions of it, should something happen.

So yea, it's a tough sell. But if a team thinks that they can get something out of the player, they might take that risk. Once again....you tell a team "look, Amar'e is a year removed from playing center for us, and running the high PnR...hell, he even did it effectively when Melo was out of the line up. You guys can plug him in at the 5, and you're likely to get that production out of him. It's what he did his entire NBA career, it's what he's comfortable doing. It doesn't fit our scheme, so lets say we move him to you and you guys can move [insert player] without missing a beat."

You gotta dress it up a bit. It's not "pleeeeeeeease, pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease take Amar'e!! We don't want him!!!! oh my god plleeeeeeease."

Unlikely? Probably. But ****....who saw Gilbert Arenas not finishing out that massive contract in Washington? Who saw Hedo Turkoglu signing that big deal in Toronto...then getting traded twice?

If the right team thinks that they can utilize Amar'e at the 5 to run some PnR, a deal can be done. Easy? No. Doable? Yes. Providing that you're dealing with the right idiot.
 

p0nder

Starter
I still see value in Amar'e in this franchise and this team. I don't want to trade him for an unproven role player and salary dump.

Not after we stole a game from the champs in a series (which is as well as OKC was able to do) and finally seem to have some kind of a team coming together for a full season. It will serve us well to be patient and try to find ways to make this work. Then in two years when Amar'e is entering in his contract season we can look at trading him. His value will be much higher then it is currently.

I suspect we will get a better seeding and a better result in the playoffs this year and Amar'e will be a part of that and teams will look to trade for closer to his real value. Not this peko****, 2nd round pick bull****, but honest to goodness star packages that make sense. It would be a mistake to "sell low" on our $100mill investment, especially when there have been improvements in his overall game even with injuries and weight issues.

I know its typical reaction to a sub-par season for a star player to just dump him for "potential" but the fact remains that you will get pennies on your dollar if you move him now. And the guy isn't a bad player. He gave us 17/7 over an injury plagued, team shifting, family dying, roller-coaster year.
 

Wargames

Starter
I know its typical reaction to a sub-par season for a star player to just dump him for "potential" but the fact remains that you will get pennies on your dollar if you move him now. And the guy isn't a bad player. He gave us 17/7 over an injury plagued, team shifting, family dying, roller-coaster year.

This is the main reason to keep him. The only reason to move him was if the Knicks lost their arbitration. If that happened then it would force the knicks to consider moving his contract since the amount would of locked the knicks into becoming a lesser team as they would be forced to shed assets to stay under the apron for the rest of Amare's contract. Now it looks like they won't have too. Also that 17/7 and the extenuating circumstance of the season is why I think its crazy to assume he couldn't be moved, the real question has been will they move him and not its honestly should they move him.
 

nuckles2k2

Superstar
I still see value in Amar'e in this franchise and this team. I don't want to trade him for an unproven role player and salary dump.

Not after we stole a game from the champs in a series (which is as well as OKC was able to do) and finally seem to have some kind of a team coming together for a full season. It will serve us well to be patient and try to find ways to make this work. Then in two years when Amar'e is entering in his contract season we can look at trading him. His value will be much higher then it is currently.

I suspect we will get a better seeding and a better result in the playoffs this year and Amar'e will be a part of that and teams will look to trade for closer to his real value. Not this peko****, 2nd round pick bull****, but honest to goodness star packages that make sense. It would be a mistake to "sell low" on our $100mill investment, especially when there have been improvements in his overall game even with injuries and weight issues.

I know its typical reaction to a sub-par season for a star player to just dump him for "potential" but the fact remains that you will get pennies on your dollar if you move him now. And the guy isn't a bad player. He gave us 17/7 over an injury plagued, team shifting, family dying, roller-coaster year.

Everything you said will make sense, only if Amar'e comes back, not needing to be fed the ball in the pick and roll.

I only mentioned Pekovic, because I watched a good number of T'wolves games (took advantage of the lower League Pass price) and he averaged around 19 points and 11 boards a game, without having plays called for him. Which meant Kevin Love still got his touches where he wanted, and needed them, Rubio was able to feed Beasley (when he played), and others.

I'm going about it in a much more analytical fashion. It's not the only way to look at it, and I can most certainly be proven wrong by STAT coming back and utilizing the post game that he should be learning from "The Dream" right now.

But, I don't want my $20M PF to only be effective when running one play, from one spot. If he rebounded and played D, maybe it would be more tolerable, but STAT didn't do that last season. The season where he had to co-exist with Melo and Tyson occupying spots that were deliberately cleared out for him in the previous season..because he was THE GUY. That doesn't fly now, because he's one of the GUYS, plural. If he's at his best playing the 5, with everyone else spaced out, that clearly doesn't work with Melo and Tyson. I brought up Pekovic because he operated on the court with Love, Beasley, and earlier in the season, Darko. He was serviceable the entire time, and his value to the team on the offensive end was not running the PnR all game, but it was crashing the offensive boards.

How many times can we expect STAT to crash the boards if Tyson is stepping out to set the pick?

Yea Pek was taken in the second round, and no he's not a big name. But his value isn't tied to one play on the offensive end. I'll take rebounding on both ends, defense on the block, and the ability to score without having to run the same play over and over again for any sort of consistent offense, over having a big name player who's extremely one dimensional.

I'm not being reactionary. I was questioning STAT, along with a few others, while everyone was telling us to give him time, then "oh wait, he might be injured", then "he has to lose the muscle he added for his back", then "his brother died", then "but...but...he came here first, he revived the Knicks."

If he returns and gives the Knicks the rebounding and defense they'll need from the 4, and if his offensive game evolves a bit so it fits with what the Knicks can achieve with a 4 who seals his man early and can score down low, or crashes the offensive boards...I'll be wrong, and happy as hell about it.

But if not...give me someone who can.
 

orangeblobman

Rotation player
I thought of the Pekovic-Amar'e trade a few months ago and still think it's a great deal for both teams.

You can read the original posts here: http://www.knicksonline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=12453&highlight=orangeblobman+pekovic

Amar'e is not a throwaway just yet. If he found a favorable system, guy can drop 25/9 for you next year, I'm sure of it.

The only thing making Amar'e look bad in New York is Carmelo.

Minny gets a veteran, they basically cash in on their youth and put that veteran in the prime there, the 'star' that they don't have. Amar'e and Love complement each other because Amar'e doesn't rebound while Love drops the trey buckets, so Amar'e can slash and slam dunk it.

It makes sense for New York because Pekovic is a hungry animal, he's a beast down there and he's not afraid to do the dirty work. Exactly the type of player that would not clash egos with Carmelo. They would do their own thing, and Pekovic doesn't need a lot of maintenance to get dirty inside.

Rubio dishes to Amar'e, Love, that's a contender. They should hire D'Antoni then we'll really see what we could have had.
 

Red

TYPE-A
I thought of the Pekovic-Amar'e trade a few months ago and still think it's a great deal for both teams.

You can read the original posts here: http://www.knicksonline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=12453&highlight=orangeblobman+pekovic

Amar'e is not a throwaway just yet. If he found a favorable system, guy can drop 25/9 for you next year, I'm sure of it.

The only thing making Amar'e look bad in New York is Carmelo.

Minny gets a veteran, they basically cash in on their youth and put that veteran in the prime there, the 'star' that they don't have. Amar'e and Love complement each other because Amar'e doesn't rebound while Love drops the trey buckets, so Amar'e can slash and slam dunk it.


It makes sense for New York because Pekovic is a hungry animal, he's a beast down there and he's not afraid to do the dirty work. Exactly the type of player that would not clash egos with Carmelo. They would do their own thing, and Pekovic doesn't need a lot of maintenance to get dirty inside.

Rubio dishes to Amar'e, Love, that's a contender. They should hire D'Antoni then we'll really see what we could have had.

So, Amare can avg 9 boards... but Amare doesn't rebound? Lol... need I point out your inconsistencies?

And...

We who?

"L"
 

gmf1369

Benchwarmer
Finding a team that will deal would be the issue. I'd be all for getting rid of him and freeing up that cap, but I can't imagine a team wanting him.

Teams like Charlotte and Detroit both have players that they want to move, and they be lying if they said otherwise...

Tyrus Thomas way overpaid or in the wrong situation in Charlotte.
If Bobcats took Amar'e he would sell tickets, they have no identity with Amar'e he could give them one. Its better alternative then what they have now.

In Detroit, between Charlie Villaneuva & Rodney Stuckey both are on the hot seat, if the right offer came along Pistons management might have to consider it. Knicks would take these two players from Detroit: Rodney Stuckey & Tayshaun Prince. Now Detroit can use their amnesty clause on Charlie Villaneuva, clear up some cap space. Everyone knows Detroit is rebuilding to have a Veteran like Amar'e with young players Knight & Monroe they have a nucleus to work with...

We can speculate to we are blue in the face. It comes down to management and if they actually believe that there is a way to gel or mesh Stat & Melo together. But the two players have to be willing to work together to make that happen, is highly unlikely...
 

orangeblobman

Rotation player
He sucks at boxing out and rebounding, but his career average is 8-9, he doesn't rebound as much as you think he should.
 

p0nder

Starter
I honestly believe that STAT will come back this year to typical form. Will he average 11+ boards a game? Not with Tyson Chandler, Melo, and Landry "best rebounding guard" Fields surrounding him. The numbers just aren't there and that's not his purpose.

Will STAT average 25+ points?? I don't see it happening. Melo is ball dominant and shoots a lot. Lin also shoots a lot. Clean up crew will be mostly Tyson and Fields.

STAT will be needed to hit the midrange and do work in the post. With him working out with The Dream ALONG SIDE of Tyson I think they can get him working in the paint and work out the spacing issues that we saw last year. This will help get him more shots and boards but in the end I think the best we should be getting is around 22/8 from the 4 spot AND better defense then the past 2 years.

People are saying that Melo and STAT aren't meshing, when personally I see it as TC and STAT needing to operate in the same space. Melo can be perimeter/mid-range floor space while both are in the block. Conversely you can have STAT in the high post, and Melo on the low block, even opposite sides. High PR for STAT is there, Melo for the dump off, TC for the put-backs. Put melo and STAT on the same side and work the two man game from the corner for a sealed off PnR to the baseline.

I would in-fact argue that having these assets could allow for them to be used in their most versatile and effective ranges. The problem was D'antoni's stubbornness and system which was ineffective in utilizing Melo and Tyson. We saw Woodson come in and for that first 7 games you saw what STAT could do in the "woodson game". Melo came back but operated in the way he and woodson were more used to. But I think with a full offseason of work and a training camp with their coach these guys can find a way to make this all work. The key will be Lin who will have to manage all of these players and spacings on the fly.

It would be better to have a vet floor spacing PG to help Lin figure this out (Nash) but even without that, Lin is a bright guy and should be able to figure it all out early in the season.

I think the hopes should be very high with this group. I'm done buying into the group-think that ESPN has shoved down our throats that because Melo and STAT are superstars they can't co-exist. This team did as well as OKC did against the Heat. that was without a training camp, key injuries, a mid-season coaching change and a mid and end season PG change. This is the Knicks year to bring it all together. After this season then if you want to move STAT it will be much easier and we will be able to say whether or not the MELO/STAT/TC experiment succeeded.
 
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