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[h1]Grading Carmelo and other NBA trades[/h1]
By Bill Simmons
ESPN.com
Chris Trotman/Getty ImagesCarmelo Anthony gives the Knicks two of the 10 starters from the 2011 All-Star Game.
In 2007, Kim Kardashian was leaking a sex tape, Charlie Sheen was still married, Barack Obama was thinking about running for president, Nicole Kidman's face could still move, people other than porn stars were using MySpace, and I was calling the NBA "The No Balls Association." Nobody wanted to trade. General managers would rather stand pat than make a move and get raked over the coals. Self-preservation trumped everything else.
Looking back, it was a transition year between the good old days (in which a slew of teams were run by people who made you wonder, "Wait, are they drunk?") and today's era of suffocating 24/7 coverage (in which every move is endlessly dissected by fans, bloggers and media members). The National Basketball Association has changed in a variety of ways this century, but none more than this: February's trade deadline, June's draft and July's free agency frenzy are consumed as voraciously as the playoffs and the Finals. You can't just slip a stupid basketball trade by an entire country anymore. You will be mocked on Twitter, on blogs, on sports radio, on message boards, in columns and articles ... if there was a theme song for this era, it would be Queen's "We Will Rock You," with one letter adjusted.
We will ... we will ... MOCK YOU!
We will ... we will ... MOCK YOU!
So it took a few years to adjust, but now we're here. With a crippling lockout looming, half the league felt obligated to do ... something. You could split the motivations of the 30 franchises into eight groups.
• Motivation No. 1: "We need to make a splash! We need to get people talking!"
• Motivation No. 2: "We need to blow up our immediate future, build something more substantial, and hopefully our fans don't hate us for it."
• Motivation No. 3: "We have a chance to make the Finals and need one more piece."
• Motivation No. 4: "We need to get under the luxury tax and/or create cap space for The Unknown Post-2011 World."
• Motivation No. 5: "We need to save money -- our owners who may or may not be three brothers who made the mistake of building a second wing of their Las Vegas casino right as the economy was crashing and now are discreetly trying to sell that casino and are trying to move their NBA team to another city as long as you give them a $100 million interest-free loan so they can pay the relocation fees couldn't be more broke right now."
• Motivation No. 6: "We're neither good nor bad. We're in no man's land. Crap. Maybe a trade would get our fans to forget this for a week or so."
• Motivation No. 7: "It's a gigantic conflict of interest that we own this team. Really, we just took it over for contraction leverage in the CBA negotiations. But the team might contend in the playoffs, so it's not a bad idea to add one more player even if we have to take on a little payroll -- let's just hope that Mark Cuban doesn't make a big stink about it."
• Motivation No. 8: "I don't need to do anything! I'm Sam Effing Presti! I'll make a trade when I'm good and $*#$%^ ready! STOP PUSHING ME!"
Without further ado, a 2011 trade deadline report card for the Formerly No Balls Association ...
[h3]THE KNICKS: A-minus[/h3]
I was stunned that my Knicks fan buddies were split over the Carmelo trade. Some loved it, some thought they gave up too much. The dissenters made the same point: "Why give up that much when we could just sign him this summer?"
Here's the problem: the Nuggets knew that (A) Carmelo was never signing an extension in New Jersey, and (B) Carmelo wanted a $65 million extension as much as he wanted to play for the Knicks. Their savviest play was to keep him past the deadline and play the odds: something like a 90 percent chance that Carmelo would have grabbed the $65 million and a 10 percent chance that he would have been stupidly stubborn enough to say, "I'm out of here, I don't care if it costs me $20 million, I'm gone." Few NBA players would ever do that, and no self-respecting agent would ever allow that. It just wouldn't happen. Their move would be to sign the extension, play hard for the rest of the season, then push for a trade that summer. At that point, Denver could have had 29 teams bidding for him instead of one. Everyone wins.
That's what terrified the Knicks: Seven months of foreplay going up in smoke because Denver played those 90 percent odds and said, "Screw it, let's keep him." So why didn't the Nuggets do that? Because they're being run by a rookie general manager (Masai Ujiri) and a rookie figurehead (Josh Kroenke, the 30-year old son of owner Stan Kroenke), neither of whom wanted to kick off their Nuggets reign by becoming the two bumbling idiots who rolled the dice on a Carmelo extension, then watched him skip off to New York for nothing. Denver needed to save face with a decent deal, which they did: Danilo Gallinari, a future No. 1 pick, a year and a half of Wilson Chandler, a giant trade exception and a severe payroll slash. And the Knicks nailed a rare chance to land another superstar who wanted to play for them -- in the James Dolan Era, not exactly a common occurrence -- instead of keeping their fingers crossed for the 2012 free agent class and Amare's knee ligaments not to turn into two bowls of fettucini. Of course ...
[h3]AGREEING WITH A DECISION PUSHED BY JAMES DOLAN AND ISIAH THOMAS: D-minus[/h3]
Reports of a Dolan/Isiah collaboration framed the opinions of Knicks fans across the world: If Dolan and Isiah agreed on something, then naturally, that's something they shouldn't want. I get that. Believe me. But Anthony Randolph was a sunk cost. Timofey Mozgov is a 24-year-old, relatively clumsy center with bad hands who played ONE good game all season. And Chauncey Billups and Ray Felton cancel each other out for this season and next. I think Billups will fare better than Felton did in New York -- he's a killer 3-point shooter, he's been in a ton of big games, and he'll play with an edge because he's probably pissed off that everyone regarded him as a throw-in for this trade. He's also never played for a team with two A-list scorers before. And you can't leave him open from outside. (He shoots 44 percent on 3-pointers; Felton shoots 33 percent. Just sayin'.) But for the purposes of this trade, it's a wash: you're getting solid production in 2011 and 2012 either way.
So really, the trade came down to the Knicks getting Carmelo for Gallinari, Chandler and a 2014 No. 1 pick. Gallinari will never make an All-Star team, but he's a dangerous streak shooter; the Knicks fans loved him; he wasn't afraid of big moments; and with Derek Jeter getting married, he was the prohibitive favorite to become the New York Athlete Who Spends The Next 10 Years Plowing Through Every Model And Celebrity In The Tri-State Area. Chandler? A solid small forward putting up inflated stats in a run-and-gun system; on any contender, he's an eighth or ninth man. Don't you flip Chandler, Gallo and a pick for Carmelo every day and twice on Sunday? Don't you do it without blinking? What am I missing? I'm on Team Dolan & Team Isiah with this one. I will now light myself on fire with a JD & The Straight Shot poster.
[h3]PEOPLE WHO FORGET THAT YOU SHOULD ALWAYS TRADE THREE OR FOUR QUARTERS FOR A DOLLAR IN BASKETBALL: F-minus[/h3]
If you disagree with the previous few paragraphs, you're bucking five solid decades of NBA history. Since 1965, not one NBA team that traded a package of pieces for a superstar regretted it after the fact. Don't believe me? Here's the complete list:
1965: Philly trades Connie Dierking, Paul Neumann, Lee Shaffer and cash to San Francisco for Wilt Chamberlain.
1968: Lakers trade Jerry Chambers, Archie Clark and Darrell Imhoff to Philly for Wilt Chamberlain.
1970: Milwaukee trades Flynn Robinson and Charlie Paulk to Cincinnati for Oscar Robertson.
1975: Lakers trade Elmore Smith, Brian Winters, Dave Meyers and Junior Bridgeman to Milwaukee for Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
1983: Philly trades Caldwell Jones and Cleveland's 1983 first-rounder (No. 3, Rodney McCray) to Houston for Moses Malone.
1993: Phoenix trades Jeff Hornacek, Tim Perry and Andrew Lang to Philly for Charles Barkley.
1994: Washington trades Tom Gugliotta, 1996 first-rounder (No. 11, Todd Fuller), 1998 first (No. 13, Keon Clark) and 2000 first (No. 7, Chris Mihm) to Golden State for Chris Webber.
1996: Houston trades Robert Horry, Sam Cassell, Chucky Brown and Mark Bryant to Phoenix for Charles Barkley.
1996: Phoenix trades Michael Finley, Sam Cassell, A.C. Green and a 1998 No. 2 (No. 53, Greg Buckner) for Jason Kidd, Tony Dumas and Loren Meyer.
1999: Phoenix trades Danny Manning, Pat Garrity, 2001 first-rounder (No. 18, Jason Collins) and 2002 first (No. 9, Amare Stoudemire) to Orlando for Penny Hardaway.
2004: Houston trades Steve Francis, Cuttino Mobley and Kelvin Cato to Orlando for Tracy McGrady, Tyronn Lue, Reece Gaines and Juwan Howard.
2005: New Jersey trades Alonzo Mourning, Eric Williams, Aaron Williams, Philly's 2005 No. 1 pick (No. 16, Joey Graham) and a 2006 No. 1 (No. 20, Renaldo Balkman) to Toronto for Vince Carter.
2005: Miami trades Lamar Odom, Brian Grant, Caron Butler, a 2006 No. 1 (No. 26, Jordan Farmar) and a 2006 No. 2 (No. 50, Renaldas Seibutis) to the Lakers for Shaquille O'Neal.
2007: Boston trades Al Jefferson, Gerald Green, Theo Ratliff, Ryan Gomes, Sebastian Telfair, a 2009 No. 1 (No. 28, Wayne Ellington) and the rights to Minnesota's 2009 No. 1 (No. 6, Jonny Flynn) to Minnesota for Kevin Garnett.
2008: Lakers trade Kwame Brown, Jarvaris Crittendon, Aaron McKie, the rights to Marc Gasol, a 2008 No. 1 (No. 28, Donte Greene) and a 2010 No. 1 (No. 28, Greivis Vasquez) to Memphis for Pau Gasol.
That's 15 trades in all. Eight of them (Wilt, Wilt again, Oscar, Moses, Barkley, Shaq, KG and Gasol) resulted in a championship or a Finals appearance within two seasons. The Lakers ended up winning five titles with Kareem. Houston came within two wins and a Matt Maloney meltdown of making the '97 Finals with Barkley. Jersey easily won the Vince trade; same for Houston with T-Mac. Phoenix won the Kidd trade, although Finley had a nice career in Dallas. Washington's Webber deal could have backfired if any of the picks panned out ... but they didn't. Only Phoenix's Penny deal failed to work out, but in a strange twist, the Suns got their No. 1 pick back in a subsequent deal and took Stoudemire with it, so even THAT trade worked out. Fifteen for 15! When in doubt, you always want to grab the dollar bill if you're giving up change in the NBA.
[h3]PEOPLE WHO DON'T REALIZE THAT CARMELO IS A LEGITIMATE SUPERSTAR: F-minus-minus[/h3]
One of the strangest subplots this week: Everyone rushing to pick Carmelo's game apart, especially people who rely on advanced metrics and ended up getting caught up in small-picture stuff. Carmelo has one elite skill (he rebounds extremely well for a small forward) and one transcendent skill (he's as good as anyone in the league at scoring and/or getting to the line, especially in crunch time). You can absolutely, positively, unquestionably win a championship if Carmelo Anthony is your creator at the end of a basketball game. The Knicks didn't have anyone like that. Few teams do.
Now throw this in: He's only 26.
Now throw this in: Ten guys started the 2011 All-Star Game. In a 30-team league, the Knicks suddenly have two of them.
Now throw this in: The other players know. They know who's good. They know who's worth a damn. They know who they'd go to war with. So you can't discount (A) how well Carmelo played on the 2008 Olympic team; (B) how much the other guys respected him; and (C) how the key guys on that team were Kobe, LeBron, Wade and Carmelo. It can't be forgotten. It just can't. Neither can the fact that he nearly carried a limited Nuggets team to the Finals two years ago.
Now throw this in: If there was ever a player who could be ignited by a great basketball city and a consistently fantastic crowd, it's Carmelo Anthony. He's been stuck in a relatively icy cruise control for two solid years, playing in a city he didn't totally love, being professional about it, trying hard every game ... and yet, there was something detached about him. No longer. I hate how he weaseled his way to the Knicks and pissed on Denver fans, but that's over. Let's look at this thing objectively: He's going to kill it with the Knicks. I'd bet anything. They haven't had someone like this since Bernard King, which is funny because I always thought Melo was Bernard 2.0. Playing in New York isn't for everyone, but in this case, it will be the best thing that ever happened to Carmelo Anthony.
I keep hearing that you can't win a title with 'Melo and Amare. Agreed. But you can win the title with Carmelo, Amar'e and Chris Paul (or Dwight Howard, or Deron Williams). In the short term, you can make some noise, rock the building and make Knicks fans forget about the 10 excruciating years they just endured. And you can scare the living hell out of the fans from the other Eastern contenders. Believe me, as a Celtics fan, I want no part of the Knicks this spring for one reason: You never want to play a playoff series in which the other team has the best guy. There's a decent chance Carmelo could just go off 1984 Bernard-style in Round 1 or Round 2. I'm crapping my pants just thinking about it. Over everything else, THAT is why they had to make this trade. A week ago, the Knicks were a .500 team. Now, they matter. And if you're throwing stats at me, I'll counter with this one: 15 for 15. Thank you and please drive through.
Wouldn't expect Simmons to fall on our side with this.
