Trade Puts Knicks on the Clock With Lee
By HOWARD BECK
Published: February 19, 2010
GREENBURGH, N.Y. — Tracy McGrady’s arrival on Thursday may lead directly to David Lee’s departure in July. The issue is salary-cap rules.
By acquiring McGrady’s large expiring contract,
the Knicks created nearly enough cap room to sign two superstars this summer. To use that cap room, they first have to renounce the rights to all of their free agents, including Lee.
That means the Knicks will
forfeit Lee’s Bird rights, which allow a team to exceed the cap to keep one of its players. Once they are under the cap,
they will also lose the midlevel exception, a salary slot worth about $6 million.
So if the Knicks sign two maximum-salaried players, say LeBron James and Chris Bosh, should they become free agents,
there will be no cap space left for Lee and no way to keep him. They will have to
fill out the roster with players making the N.B.A. minimum.
There are other possible situations. If the Knicks sign only one superstar, they would have about $16 million of cap room left. That would be enough to re-sign Lee (even without his Bird rights) and other players, assuming another team has not signed Lee while the Knicks were chasing bigger stars.
The Knicks could also use Lee in a sign-and-trade deal, perhaps in a dual sign-and-trade for Bosh. However, renouncing his rights negates the sign-and-trade option. Timing is an issue: The Knicks will not claim their estimated $31.5 million in cap room until they have renounced the rights to all their free agents.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/20/sp...er=rss&emc=rss
Am I missing something? Seriously, am I missing something?
I don't understand why this isn't pointed out in the media more?
How in the world does anyone honestly expect a self-respecting NBA star to sign with a team that has 2 All-stars surrounded by NBA vets and 2nd round bottom-barrel talent. You know who had that? The '04 Cavs. The '10 Wizards. The '08 Bucks. It's so hard to even come up with more examples because almost nothing like that exists in the NBA.
If Lebron leaves for that situation, he has definitively proven that he cares nothing about winning, and it has become 100% about fame and money.
The true winners in Free Agency this summer will probably be the Bulls. They have the cap room to sign a max talent, but also has young potential All-and-Super-Stars in place. Maybe Miami if Dwayne stays.
Nobody else.
