The New York Knicks When Detroit Pistons The choices made by the two teams represent the true starting point for team building, although they are both wheels and deals, and most do it to each other. The choice between quick fix and slow steady rebuild isn’t as cut-and-dry as it looks, but in this case, the contrast between the two approaches has culminated in multiple transactions in the past week. increase. Allow New York to sign Dallas guard Jalen Brunson as a free agent — I can’t make it any clearer.
From a 10,000-foot perspective, free agents often fall into two approaches. One is a more aggressive and intoxicating strategy.It’s pretty easy to get caught up in the frenzy NBATrading Season: Stick to a particular goal early, gradually move the goal post at an acceptable price, and then start the second free agent. Before you knew it, you sent multiple draft topics and committed nine numbers to sign non-all-stars on almost the largest deals. (Of course, this is probably not as bad as committing full Maximum to sign non-all-stars from Dallas Mavericks, but enough for my personal life. )
Alternatively, the team can put their hands on their ears to prevent them from being sucked into the game and keep the powder dry for more fruitful future opportunities. Of course, this strategy only works for a very long time. You cannot accumulate assets to permanently limit space.At some point you have to spend money who.
Often there is no perfect answer, but Knicks is clearly in the first group and pistons are in the very second group.
Knicks has determined that Branson is a person worth paying for and is not yet able to admit it out loud. (That part will come on Thursday.) However, one player thought that perhapsCommand, nearly $ 20 million a year in March, is now 4-year contract over $ 100 million From Knicks … after Pistons, who was widely considered to be one of his most likely suitors, exempted himself from the pursuit (and). Deandre Ayton) And I decided to wait another year.
At first glance, the pursuit of Knicks makes some sense. New York needed a point guard, and Branson was the best point guard available in reality. On a direct evaluation basis, My BORD $ formula is worth $ 30 million to him For 2022-23. He is very nice.
On the other hand, can I pull the camera back a little and make it look longer than one season? Knicks won 37 games last season, but unless you think of it, there are no big event stars. Julius Randle Use the one-month heater again for the 22-foot person in dispute. There are pretty good young players in New York, but I don’t think it’s particularly likely to make an All-Star game.And with some decent veterans, Randall Derrick Rose This is the only All-Star game in the past that no one will play in the future.
They are probably below average teams without Branson, and perhaps just above average with him. In either scenario, there is absolutely no chance of competing for something important.
This is especially true given that Branson has a questionable fit with other Knicks. It’s one thing to shimmy the floater and the paint above and below while Dallas has four 3-point shooters lined up around it. Doing so in the lineup with Randle is a completely different thing, RJ Barrett When Mitchell Robinson As three of the other four players. Branson rates him as a $ 30 million player based on his actions in Dallas. How it translates into this roster, and Tom Thibodeau’s attack is a very open question.
So, on any horizon beyond next week’s press conference, this was the wrong player and the wrong moment for New York. For starters, if you’re planning on jumping into the free agent market and don’t have a marquee player yet, go high diving instead of the edge of the pool. Branson is really good, but he’s not a franchise-changing player. Knicks was in a large chunk of caproom in the seemingly more abundant 2023 free agent market. Even after paying Barrett and Robinson (who the league insider suspects is returning to Knicks on a multi-year contract somewhere in his mid-teens), Knicks had to reject Derrick Rose’s option, Alec Burks When Nerlens Noel To have a healthy wad of money in the room.
Instead, in order to jump over the gun and enter the 2022 market, New York abandoned the first round of 2022, Burks, Noel, on the piston. Kemba WalkerKnicks got a good price to throw away the first one (less valuable than what they gave up, but a total of more three first ones in the future), and then to throw away Walker in Detroit Paid extravagantly: surrender the second rounders of the four futures and the first one for less future choices.
Knicks apparently dropped Noel and Burks in Detroit, paid $ 6 million in cash, returned Detroit’s 2023 seconds, and added a “fake second” protected in the top 55 from Miami. (Not communicated at all or as the ability to draft another Balsa Koprivica.)
In total, Knicks gave up the next 5 seconds and the maximum cash allowed for trading that year. Of course, if you start asking about how all of this was put together a few days before the league started, the picks for the second round of 2025 could be confiscated. Free agent. It was because of the ability to pay Branson and go all-in to a team with no championship equity.
It’s a little … isn’t it lame?So we’re probably chasing these seven species Washington Wizards Also New Orleans Pelican, But this is Knicks! Do they have enough free agent gravity to get a real star in 2023? Or maybe they’re likely to redeem the expired contract raft they had this season?
Indeed, one of the weirdest twists in this story is that Knicks’ 2021 off-season has already been blown to the Smithereens, offloading three of the five key contracts signed by New York, and the other. I couldn’t unload one (Evan Fournier) After a fairly coordinated effort. Eleven months ago, the overall idea was that these 2023 expired trades could expire big star trade pieces. Instead, they paid again to get rid of them. At least they still have Randall extensions.
As for Detroit, I can argue that negotiations with Knicks of the Burks-Noel Package could have been even more difficult, but let’s praise Pistons’ patience here.They weren’t fooled by going all-in to next year’s play-in tournament and were traded instead Jerami GrantTake some unnecessary money and get away from the draft with a second lottery pick with a big guy Jalen Duren.. (Detroit put him in 13th place, but I heard he was playing for them at 5 o’clock.)
You may ask what the team is doing with a roster consisting of: Cade Cunningham With 43 centers, the potential rewards of the Detroit approach are enormous.
Have you ever heard the old saying, “Give the loot to the winner”? Well, this year it’s like “Victor goes to spoilers”.
No.1 consensus pick with French genius Victor Wembanyama, and Generational talent in some eyesFor teams that aren’t very good already, there is an additional incentive to want to be terrible this season. The Pistons avoided the idea of chasing Branson in a bulging number (and for that matter, Eighton and Miles Bridges), and instead spent another year accumulating assets and truly rebuilding. The Pistons could also have a caproom of over $ 60 million a year from now and are probably a core worth signing up for.
So, in the short term, don’t sweat the fact that they have durene, Kelly Olynyk, Isaiah Stewart, Noel and Marvin Bagley from the same team. At some point, they certainly replace some of them. (Random Technique: Detroit needs to release Bagley’s $ 28 million cap hold before completing a deal with Burks and Noel, probably by re-signing him in a much smaller number. .)
Burkes isn’t enough to win too many games in Detroit, but if he proves he’s recovered from recent foot surgery, he can net them for another second on the trading deadline. .. Yes, Pistons resigned Bagley, handed the key to Cunningham, Durene, Stewart, Saddiq Bey And some other young players they like.They aren’t completely tanking, but they aren’t No Tanking either. By the way, Pistons still has a spare cap room to accept more unwanted deals (around $ 12 to $ 15 million, depending on Bagley’s price), even after all this has been done.Keep an eye on Danilo GallinariA person who could be acquired and abandoned before executing a Knicks transaction.
This is the last piece. Knicks may not take place and this transaction may still look different. We’re currently in a weird animation outage where the team can agree to a deal but can’t actually run it for another week. This means that “completed” transactions can be merged into very different productions after the fact.
For example, Mavericks could generate a trade exception of half of Branson’s first-year salary if he agreed to sign (Branson’s $ 105 million deal, a four-year whisper, is true. In some cases, it could be about $ 12.5 million). And-trade with Knicks.
Sign-and-trade is very likely to favor Knicks, especially if the pistons can be roped together. Detroit can send its beloved Coprivica to Dallas to complete the trade triangle, and the three sides need to vie for other small incentives to make it a bigger deal.
If they stop it, Knicks can act as an “over-the-cap” team and keep their non-taxpayer mid-level exceptions to sign another player. It could also raise a $ 9.2 million trade exception to either Walker or Noel unless Branson’s 2022-23 salary exceeds $ 24.2 million. That’s more than his total transaction value of $ 105.8 million. (Instead of exceptions, they can still be stuffed another Sign-and-trade, perhaps after the start of free agents, to team up and regain up to $ 14.2 million worth of deals. This can be quirky. )
New York while we are here For real Want to go all-in to a lesser star without shooting too much?Can they enter Dejounte Murray Tracked with matching contracts Cam Reddish, Taj Gibson, Miles McBride And, not to mention themselves, the first of the four futures from other teams they still have? I leave that lazy idea here while the comments section burns out.
What’s interesting is that Knicks is much better at the details of Cap Shenanigan as above in the Leon Rose era, earning margins on some trades and mastering fairly complex trades. Pistons may have left money on the table in the same case.
Still, take a step back and look at the big picture and ask which future you want. It’s quite possible that Knicks will be halfway through this year and the pistons will stink, but beyond that, Detroit’s big picture decision tree seems to be much more difficult than that of New York.
Related reading
Edwards: Analyzing Detroit-New York Trade
Katz: RJ Barrett Extension — How Much Does It Cost?
(Photo of Jalen Brunson: Mark J. Rebilas / USA Today)
