It's by Dan L, my bad but its a good article.
TMac: The Real No-Brainer
<abbr class="updated" title="2009-11-21T00:34:12-0800">Nov 21st, 2009</abbr> <address class="author vcard">by
Dan L. </address>
Ok so the Knicks turned down the chance to sign Allen Iverson. Now fans won?t get to see The Answer jack up 25 shots a night at the expense of Gallinari, Douglas, Hill, and most importantly, Eddy Curry, just to win 5 more games.
[Note: since Donnie used player development as an excuse to not sign A.I., I would like to see the Knicks actually do that every night. So far they haven't.]
But make no mistake, the Knicks need to showcase Curry. The better he looks (and he looked good on Wednesday), the better the chance the Knicks can trade him, thereby clearing enough cap space to sign two max guys in July.
It has also been reported (by Hahn among others) that the Knicks are looking at alternative opportunities to improve the roster. That could explain why their hotness for Iverson seemed to turn ice cold overnight. What potential opportunity could be in the works? Adrain Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports reports that Tracy McGrady is fed up with the rockets and the situation has reached a boiling point. Wojnarowski also writes that the Rockets main goals in dealing with TMac involve maintaining team chemistry and saving money by having insurance pick up 80% of his per game salary for each game that he misses from here on out.
Now, the incoming and outgoing salaries involved in any trade with the Rockets must be within 150% of one another. That means the Rockets can take back a good amount less than than McGrady?s $23 million. That difference is doubled, since as a tax paying team, the Rockets would also be spared a dollar for dollar penalty equal to difference between McGrady?s salary and whatever they bring back.
And if one of the contracts is Cuttino Mobley?s, Houston will be entitled to have insurance cover it, as long as they obtain it by the end of the month (a year from Cuttino?s ?injury?). A deal that makes a lot of sense for both teams is Duhon/Jeffries/Darko for McGrady/Cook. Knicks lose Jeffries and get a scorer and the Rockets maintain chemistry and save millions on Mobley?s contract and millions more in avoiding a dollar for dollar tax penalty. Once Mobley?s contract comes off their books, Houston would save about $10 million in salary and thus $10 million in tax as well. In fact, this trade makes so much sense, I?m surprised it hasn?t happened yet.
