You have to remember Balkman didnt have that high of value outside our team. He meant a lot to us because we have no defenders, but, really he is just another hustle player to most teams, so we are thinking we would have gotten much more for him. Now put yourself in another teams shoes, what would you really offer for Balkman? or would you take a package consisting of Balkman and Jefferies without dumping some major garbage on the Knicks in return. This move was simply to create room on the roster while shaving a million off the cap. Plus how much time do we thing Balkman would have gotten, you said it yourself that we have too many SFs anyways, so now we have one less.
I don't love or hate this move, honestly I think it will not make a difference in terms of wins and losses next season. Did Denver get the better of this deal...ofcourse it was intended to be a one sided deal as far as talent. And you have to imagine that after watching Balkman in the gym, in Summer League practices, and on film, Mike Dantoni did not think he would fit in his system.
Now had this deal been for D Lee I would've flipped! But I say all in all it was as fair as NBA trades can be, both teams got what they wanted out of it.
If Walsh & D'Antoni would have selected the right draft pick,
and stop trying to trade the players that are tradeable on this team
and get down to bussiness in trading players like
Zach, Q.Rich, Marbury, Jefferies, Crawford, Malik, and Jerome James,
then a player with Balkman depth off the bench would help win alot of games defending SG, SF, and 6.9 PF.
The two best SF the Knicks had for next season was "Balkman & Chandler".
Q.Richardson is done,
Jefferies is not better than Balkman or Chandler at anything,
and Gallinari is a Kid....... that is liable for injury his first 2 years in the NBA.
My opinion, they cut Balkman for pulling out of the Knicks summer league Games.
That's just my opinion.
If I was Balkman agent I would have told him to deny the summer league games the moment they selected Gallinari in the draft.
Larry Brown did not know what to do with Barnes and Ariza.
And now D'Antoni dont know what to do with Balkman.
BULLSHIT!
These are the type of players that does the things consistently to make their team winners.