Continuing my series on the sordid realities of the teams vying for LeBron this summer, I want to take a look at the Knicks tonight. As you can probably surmise from the photo I’m pairing with this post, I don’t think much of their chances.
This is actually a much simpler analysis than my opening salvo on the Miami Heat. The reason is that the Knicks, to put it in the simplest terms, have cap space and almost literally nothing else.
As Joe Treutlein of Hoop Data details here, Donnie Walsh’s moves at the trade deadline give the Knicks enough cap space to sign two max free agents by the slimmest possible margin. Assuming a buy-out of Eddie Curry and a $53M cap, a mere $50,000 separates New York from joining the list of teams with room for only one max contract.
However, if Spike Lee has any iota of realism in him, he shouldn’t be dancing in the streets just yet. Why? Because to get to this zone, New York’s roster will be populated by these players:
Danilo Gallinari
Wilson Chandler
Toney Douglas
10 players making the league minimum
Without even getting into the performance of those three hold-overs from the 2009-10 season, think about this fact. Even if those players and the two max free agents actually fill out a workable staring line-up, literally every player coming off the New York bench will be making minimum money. Like Pat Riley, Donnie Walsh is therefore banking that quality role players around the league will voluntarily take less money so that they can play with whomever they get as their big-money stars.
As we’ve said over and over again, this is a terrible gamble. It was a bad gamble last summer, and I would argue that it’s an even worse gamble this upcoming summer due to the gathering storm clouds of a 2011 work-stoppage. Any player looking to sign a new deal this summer is going to be prioritizing dollar value more than ever before. So instead of a bench full of skilled role players, the Knicks are most likely going to end up with ten minimum salary guys in the truest “you get what you pay for” sense of the word.
This is a bigger problem than a lot of people want to recognize. LeBron and Dwyane Wade share something that none of the other major 2010 free agents do—they’ve both been to the Finals. LeBron got manhandled there. Wade (thanks to the greatest collection of phantom calls in league history) won. But both players are smart and experienced enough to understand the necessity of a good supporting cast to winning a championship.
“Supporting cast” as a phrase gets distorted pretty frequently, I think, to mean “1 or 2 other guys who can get 20-25 points.” But as people who really watch basketball know, there’s a lot more to it than that. You need shooters, gritty defenders, big men, “energy / hustle” players, rebounders, fighters. The Knicks’ chances of filling out a roster full of true complementary pieces using only the veteran’s minimum…they’re weak, especially in the first year. And LeBron knows it.
There’s a long debate that could be had about which is better: playing with one other star and a bunch of scrap, or no other stars but a roster full of reasonably priced, highly productive role players. A lot of it, I think, depends on how you define “better.” But I would argue forcefully that in the case of a superstar of LeBron’s capabilities, the latter option gives him the best odds of winning a title.
Might Donnie Walsh ultimately be able to build a complete team around LeBron? Yes. But how many years will it take? And with LeBron now used to a certain level of success (and hungry for the big prize), how appealing is the idea of waiting around for a couple of years to get a championship-ready team in place?
Even more importantly, is it even possible to build a championship team when it’s being coached by Mike D’Antoni, perhaps the least defensively minded coach in recent NBA history? I’ve heard analysts say that LeBron would love to play for him because D’Antoni would let LeBron run all game. Not only does Bron not care about running all game, he’s openly said over and over again that he knows defense is what wins championships. So why exactly is the D’Antoni / New York combo such a great fit for him?
So with a roster as unexciting as this, the other two crutches the New York fans / media fall back on are the dual myths of “New York as the Mecca of Basketball” and the “New York as Key to Endorsement Success.” The problem with the former is that it’s all hot air. As we’ve pointed out before, New York has won two NBA titles in their history—1970 and 1972—and since that time plenty of great players have been content to scratch their Madison Square Garden itch by coming into the building once a year and beating up on the home team.
The problem with the marketing myth is that it’s not even just hot air—it’s blatantly, factually false. Kenny Huang, the incoming minority owner of the Cavs, will give Bron the greatest possible inroad to the enormous market that is China. Even without Huang, James’s recent deal with McDonald’s already makes him the sport’s leader in endorsement money. As Kurt Badenhausen of Forbes reported when that deal was signed:
The McDonald’s deal should squelch any talk that James needs to leave Cleveland to be a big star with big endorsement deals. James is already a huge star and has multi-million deals with the biggest global brands in shoes (Nike), beverages (Coca-Cola) and now fast-food (McDonald’s). Knicks fans might want to start preparing for reality. LeBron doesn’t need New York to become a global icon. Cleveland will do just fine.
Couldn’t have said it better myself.
Prediction: Knicks overpay Rudy Gay and another second-tier free agent and follow the model of the mid-2000s Washington Wizards—perennial playoff team that goes nowhere. Donnie Walsh follows Joe Dumars in the ranks of “GMs that everyone finally realized were horrendously overrated.” Bron continues to play at MSG once a year in a way that drives Mike, my dad, and me crazy.
-T
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