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Perhaps the real question in all Knicks-Tracy McGrady rumor-mongering is "how much will the Knicks give up to shed Jared Jeffries's 2010-11 salary?" Because that is exactly what the latest New York-Houston rumor entails: the Knicks get McGrady's $23 million contract, which expires this June. Houston takes Jeffries, the middling defender who is owed $6.8 million next season. How much is that worth to New York, which desperately wants to be the most talked about city on the map as half the league's MVP race becomes free agents?If you believe the Yahoo! Sports report by Adrian Wojnarowski and Marc Spears, that swap is worth Knicks 2009 lottery pick Jordan Hill, a swap of 2011 first-round picks, New York's 2012 first-round and perhaps a 2010 second-round pick. Essentially, then, 2-1/2 first-round picks. To shed $6.8 million in future salary. And, I suppose, get a couple months of McGrady.
Isn't that simply insane? Cutting Jeffries and Hill out of the 2010-11 payroll would get the Knicks down to $17.8 million in salary committments, leaving roughly $35 million (depending on where the cap falls) for Donnie Walsh to make magic with. Without trading those fellows, the Knicks have about $25 million in cap space -- plenty for a maximum-level player and a quite good second banana (David Lee?). This trade isn't opening the gateway for two max players (if that's even realistically doable) -- it's allowing the team to add an extra free agent piece if it happens to get a max player. That player should be better than Jeffries, but not 2-1/2 first-round picks better.
It's ridiculous, really. If Jeffries were the difference in being able to afford LeBron and one more above-average player and not being able to afford anything, well that's a different story. But the Knicks have so much cap space already that losing Jeffries is more like frosting than actual cake. The squeezing out of additional flexibility is damn near superfluous, especially with so many draft picks in play.
And look at it this way: if New York fails to land a big name free agent (or picks the wrong one) and stinks to High Hell in 2011 and 2012 ... it has no way of getting better immediately. Seeing a mediocre team trade lottery picks is a bad, bad omen. Ask the last team that did it: Isiah Thomas's Knicks.
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