Yet Another Draft Day Gone By
Ahh, the NBA draft… every year I sit back and watch the Knicks make a bunch of meandering moves. I’ll give Thomas the benefit of the doubt with the picks, since he knows how to pick young talent. However, in terms of steering the ship, it looks like New York is not out of the choppy waters just yet.
For NY, the big move of the night was the trade of Channing Frye and Steve Francis for Zach Randolph, Dan Dickau, and Raptors guard Fred Jones. At first glance, this seems like a steal. Channing regressed horribly after his encouraging rookie season, and Steve Francis has a bad contract and a slew of injuries that have limited his time on the court. This is pretty much a repeat of last year’s trade when the Knicks got Steve Francis for the washed up Penny Hardaway and Trevor Ariza. Without considering contracts, these sound like good deals. Unfortunately, this is exactly how the Knicks front office thinks.
The major problem with these trades is the opportunity cost. I would say that the Knicks are better talent-wise with Randolph, since he adds points and rebounding. Neither of the players the Knicks gave up are factors on the court anymore. Sounds good, right? Unfortunately, because NY always takes on horrible contracts in these trades, they can never participate in any trades that would significantly help the team. Here are two analogies:
- You have time for one shot before the clock expires, and you are down by 3 points. The opponent does not defend the paint, allowing you to score an uncontested layup as time expires. You lose by one point.
- You have a bicycle and you really need a van to move your stuff. You have $20,000 and find a motorcycle that usually sells for $15,000 on sale for $10,000 (although it is still overpriced). You buy the motorcycle, and the next week a van goes on sale for a reasonable price of $15,000 but you cannot afford it now.
Finally Zach’s large contract will haunt the Knicks for years to come. Next year he’ll make a little over $13M, and it escalates to $17M in 2011. New York could have conceivably been under the cap in 2009, but notions of signing a free agent have now gone out the window for 4 years.
These are exactly the sort of things that keep happening. Of course this isn’t even addressing the fact that Randolph duplicates many of the few strengths that the Knicks have, while not addressing any of their weaknesses. To be fair, there are rumors that Randolph will be an upgraded version of what the Knicks hoped Frye would become, with an agile mid-range jumper, and the ability to create his own shot. I will have to see it to be convinced.
It’d be one thing if the front office had a history of making great trades, or if this was part of a master plan/combo trade, but the last few years of management don’t back up either of these theories.
