2010 Salary Cap vs Knicks

Shonuff

Rookie
Here are some of the questions I thought about after reading the article:
(1) Should the Knicks resign Nate Robinson and/or David Lee this Summer when they become free agents or just focus on getting LeBron in 2010?

I'd hate to lose Nate & DLee but I don't know if the Knicks will have enough cash to offer them money and try to go after LeBron/Bosh,etc. So I say focus on 2010 cap space.



(2) Should the Knicks trade away David Lee and Nate Robinson to get a team to take Jarred Jeffries and/or Eddy Curry along with them in a trade since Jeffries/Curry's contract will be on the books for 2010 and it seems unlikely that the Knicks will want to pay Nate/DLee more money to resign in 2009 (see Q1)?


This would mean losing Nate and/or DLee this year in an effort to eliminate the costs of Jarred J and/or Eddy Curry's salaries. If you value the objective of 2010 LeBron - then you have to clear up space and find ways to eliminate sal cap space eaters like ECurry & JarredJ. I think even with the current roster - one thing I 've seen is that any player under D'Antoni's system can score points and do well.
New York has two players Eddy Curry at $11.3 million, Jared Jeffries at $6.9 million still paid in 2010.
nba_g_naterob_576.jpg

What the Knicks do with the newly crowned dunk king is critical to their 2010 plans.​

NEW YORK -- In case you missed it, NBA commissioner David Stern dropped a bomb on the New York Knicks over All-Star Weekend.

It'll impact their pursuit of LeBron James, and it could negate the chances of their ultimate goal -- getting both James and Chris Bosh.

More immediately, it is affecting their current trade-deadline considerations in their pursuit of fiscal freedom in the summer of 2010. In particular, there is this concern: What to do with double-double machine David Lee and his sidekick, Krypto-Nate Robinson, who would make nice running mates for whichever member(s) of the free agent class of 2010 become the anchor(s) of the franchise heading into the next decade.

The question, for now, is whether the Knicks can afford to keep either or both of them -- and how that'll shape their thinking approaching Thursday's 3 p.m. ET trade deadline.

The bomb, in case you had something better to do Saturday night than watch Stern's annual All-Star news conference on NBA-TV, was that the salary cap is expected to decrease from the current $58.6 million because overly optimistic economic forecasts were calculated into this year's cap and because of the overall economic situation.

"Teams know exactly what's happening. They know what their finances are. They know what the issues are. They also know that the cap is going to start -- the cap is coming down, and the [luxury tax threshold]," Stern said. "If you don't have a lot of high-revenue growth over the next couple of years, there may be a slowdown. But teams know the rules, and they can assess their own situations."

In assessing the Knicks' situation, the cap-clearing trades earlier this season of Jamal Crawford and Zach Randolph produced a $27.3 million decrease in the 2010-11 payroll, but that solved only half of the problem. New York has two players (Eddy Curry at $11.3 million, Jared Jeffries at $6.9 million) under contract for 2010-11, plus player options for Wilson Chandler ($2.1 million) and Danilo Gallinari ($3.3 million). Also, they'll be committed to paying their 2009 draft pick somewhere from $5.6 million (if they miss the playoffs and win the draft lottery) and $1.8 million (if they finish eighth in the East, make the playoffs and draft 15th.)

That adds up to something between $25.4 and $29.2 million in committed salary for 2010-11, before factoring in whether Lee and Robinson -- both of whom will be restricted free agents this summer -- are also on the roster.


In addition, NBA collective bargaining rules have a little-known section dealing with what are known as "phantom" player cap holds. Let's say a team was so intent on clearing cap space that it filled its roster with nothing but expiring contracts and had no young players on rookie contracts. In other words, such a team could theoretically get its roster size down to zero by renouncing its rights to every player who finished the prior season in that team's uniform.

Such a team would then have a cap number of $0, correct?

Incorrect.

This is where the phantom players come in. The rules of the collective bargaining agreement state that every NBA team must always have at least 12 players taking up cap space.

If, for instance, a team has 11 players on its cap when free agency begins on July 8, a 12th player -- a phantom -- is added to the team's cap at the rookie minimum salary (it'll be $473,604 in 2010-11).

Thus, if a team has no players under contract for the summer of 2010, its salary cap number can go no lower than $5.68 million ($473,604 times 12).


Those phantoms will be important, because they'll be eating into the cap room the Knicks will have available to offer to James and Bosh, each of whom will be eligible (if they leave the Cavs and Raptors, respectively, without doing so through a sign-and-trade) for a five-year contract with 8 percent annual raises, at a beginning salary equal to 30 percent of the cap.

(If they stay with their current teams, or if they change cities through sign-and-trade deals, they can get six-year deals with 10.5 percent annual raises. It also should be noted that James, Bosh and their 2010 free-agent class counterparts, including Yao Ming and Dirk Nowitzki, can take themselves off the 2010 market between now and then if they sign extensions with their current teams that'll pay tens of millions more dollars in the long run.)

The Knicks had been expecting the salary cap to grow to more than $60 million by the summer of 2010, but Stern's pessimistic forecast means it should stay somewhere south of $60 million.

So, if we add up Curry, Jeffries, Gallinari, Chandler, the 2009 pick (at a rough guestimate of $2 million) and seven phantoms to reach the 12-spot mandate, the Knicks will be at roughly $29 million.

Estimates for the salary cap in 2010 range from $54 million (on the pessimistic end) to about $60 million (the hopeful view). Even if we use the optimistic estimate of $60 million, the Knicks will have only about $31 million to split between two max-level free agents. Problem is, each of those two max free agents would be eligible for a starting salary of $17.7 million, which leaves the Knicks about $5 million short of having the amount of space necessary to go after two max guys (and remember, we still aren't factoring Lee and/or Robinson into the equation).

The solution is to get rid of Curry and Jeffries, but the problem with that solution is self-evident.

Curry has played a total of three minutes in a season filled with personal tragedies and physical setbacks, beginning when he reported to camp sick. There would appear to be no chance the Knicks can move him this season, leaving them to hope he is in good enough spirits and shape a year from now, and productive enough, to entice some team to trade for him.

Then there is Jeffries, who the Knicks have tried to showcase by using him as their starting center and having him defend all five positions over the first 52 games of the season. If Jeffries had a reasonable contract and any semblance of a decent offensive game, they might find a taker. But with his contract running for two years after this one, and with a player efficiency rating ranked 303rd out of John Hollinger's 322 eligible players, Donnie Walsh may find his best option for getting rid of him is to insist that anyone making a trade for Robinson or Lee agree to accept Jeffries as part of the package.

Still, Walsh sounded anything but impatient as he discussed the Knicks' cap conundrum at practice on Monday, saying further options will present themselves at the end of June as the draft approaches.

If the Knicks stand pat at the trade deadline, the Lee and Robinson situations -- and their impact on the summer of 2010 fiscal plan -- will move to the forefront beginning July 1.

Lee, who earns $1.79 million this season and will be tendered a qualifying offer of $2.7 million for 2009-10, is expected to seek a multiyear contract in excess of $10 million per season. The Knicks would likely have to abandon their plan of seeking two max free agents if they were to match any such offer sheet this summer -- assuming Lee (who enters Tuesday night's game against the Spurs having posted a double-double in 28 of 30 games) can get that much in what will be a tight market. And any team signing Lee to an offer sheet would try to load as much of his overall salary as possible into the 2010-11 season to further dissuade the Knicks from matching.

Robinson (who's earning $2.02 million this season and will get a $2.91 million qualifying offer this summer) will be seeking roughly half as much as Lee when he becomes a restricted free agent, though the Knicks would be expected to make up their minds on Lee first.

Let's say the Knicks were to retain Lee at $11 million and Robinson at $6 million for 2010-11. Their committed payroll, including Curry, Jeffries, Chandler, Gallinari, the 2009 first-round pick and five phantoms, would be $46 to $49 million.

That doesn't leave them enough money to make a max offer to even one premiere free agent when the Summer of LeBron comes along.

So unless Walsh pulls off the unfathomable and trades away both Jeffries and Curry without including Lee and Robinson in such deals, there simply ain't enough room in this town, cap-room-wise in 2010, for James, Bosh, Lee and Krypto-Nate.

That's just the way the cold, hard salary cap math works out -- an equation we're all now more attuned to thanks to the commissioner's bombshell out of Phoenix.

Any thoughts??
 
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WNY_Knickfan

Benchwarmer
My thoughts... #*%$!!! I want Lee, Gallinari, Chandler, and to a lesser extent Nate and Al Harrington around with a star player in 2010. Nate and Al to a lesser extent, I'd be willing to trade either I only include them in my list cuz I want to make sure we get some value if either are traded.
 

DaTPRiNCE

The Knicks are Back
resign Nate and Lee and sign one superstar in 2010, dont get greedy Donnie, cause if he gets greedy he'll walk away with nothing, so go with what you know get Nate and Lee signed longterm and you still have a year to dump Eddie and then pick a superstar to mesh this team together.
 

smokes

Huge Member
resign Nate and Lee and sign one superstar in 2010, dont get greedy Donnie, cause if he gets greedy he'll walk away with nothing, so go with what you know get Nate and Lee signed longterm and you still have a year to dump Eddie and then pick a superstar to mesh this team together.

Yeah but how do we dump Eddie without moving Nate or Lee? It has to be Chandler or Gallo. I doubt they are willing to trade Gallo, so it just leaves Chandler.

(We can't trade a first rounder 2011 and we don't have a first round 2010).
 
My thoughts... #*%$!!! I want Lee, Gallinari, Chandler, and to a lesser extent Nate and Al Harrington around with a star player in 2010. Nate and Al to a lesser extent, I'd be willing to trade either I only include them in my list cuz I want to make sure we get some value if either are traded.
ADDING ONE SUPERSTAR TO THAT MIX WILL NOT WIN A CHAMPIONSHIP.

besides a superstar, we need role players that play defense.
non of those guys play d, only chandler has shown that he can play defense.
the only ones i would keep are nate,gallo,and wilson.everybody else should be traded for cap relief or younger player improvement.
 

Shonuff

Rookie
Yes but unless I misread the article, we won't be able to keep Lee + Nate and sign even ONE superstar unless we drop Curry or Jefferies, that was the point I thought.

Yea, that's the way the salary cap works out - meaning dump Curry or Jefferies - if we want to keep Lee + Nate with LeBron... not to mention Gallo's contract as well.
 

Starks

Starter
A few summers ago when the Knicks signed Jeffries, I kept posting about how much Jeffries sucks and that it was a horrible addition. All I did was get blasted by people that said I didn't watch enough NBA to know how valuable he was to the wizards.

Where are all you geniuses now?
 

DaTPRiNCE

The Knicks are Back
yea smokes, well unload one of them most likely Jeffires i hear the deal being discussed is Jeffires and Rose for Miller.....

...we should do what we could to keep Nate and Lee

Nate- future 6th man winner

Lee- allstar.
 

dre48ny

Rotation player
Yeah that Jefferies signing was just too damn long of a contract!! Of course these are all Isaiah moves along wth trading for Curry.

I pray that Curry opts out (probably 5% chance). If the NYK want both N8 and lee and can't find a way to dump Curry and Jefferies than we will have to wait until 2011. We could also hope that Lebron and Bosh decide to stay one more year with their teams respectively. Kind of sucks that we r forced into this situation, but somethings gotta give.
 

latiger12

Rookie
ill be perfectly happy with 1 superstar in 2010...<OBJECT height=0 width=0 classid=clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000>
























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I actually fully agree with this. I think the addition of one superstar would fit in nicely with the core group we have. IMO
 

DaTPRiNCE

The Knicks are Back
yea and imagine our draft pick this year will be pretty good as well

and our core off the bench will be Nate and either Chandler or Gallo...........NBA Championship i could smell it.
 

Kiyaman

Legend
And that's just 1 out of the 10 problems with a $100M salary cap team droping 65% of their salary cap in just two seasons.

The Knicks 2010 Plan sounded to much like the Isiah Thomas Plan of ridding the Knicks of "ALL" the Layden players....which was an idotic-plan.

The Spurs started their 2010 Plan 2 or 3 years ago where they have 9 players contract ending in the 2010 offseason to resign with only 2 players on their books (Duncan $17M and Parker $13M).
Now the Spurs have a real 2010 Plan that works for one Super-Star FA or two super-star FA who will take a salary cut to be in the Finals for two years in a row....even with the league decrease in the Salary-cap.
 

metrocard

Legend
And that's just 1 out of the 10 problems with a $100M salary cap team droping 65% of their salary cap in just two seasons.

The Knicks 2010 Plan sounded to much like the Isiah Thomas Plan of ridding the Knicks of "ALL" the Layden players....which was an idotic-plan.

The Spurs started their 2010 Plan 2 or 3 years ago where they have 9 players contract ending in the 2010 offseason to resign with only 2 players on their books (Duncan $17M and Parker $13M).
Now the Spurs have a real 2010 Plan that works for one Super-Star FA or two super-star FA who will take a salary cut to be in the Finals for two years in a row....even with the league decrease in the Salary-cap.

Good point.


Its so sad how worst Isiah made us when he could just let the contracts expired and build this team from the draft and the free agency.

We could of had Aldridge, Fernandez, Robinson, Lee...etc...
 

LeFlume

All Star
Just keep Scott Boras away from David Lee and Nate Robinson and we will be fine when it's time for negotiations.
 
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