Knicks land ‘Melo, but Denver gets windfall

Overall, the Knicks paid a fair price to have Carmelo play alongside Amar'e Stoudemire in New York. (Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images)

My quick reaction to the Carmelo Anthony trade – with more to come Tuesday — as I sit on the cold floor at Los Angeles International Airport:

My general take is that this is a fair deal. According to initial reports, here are the particulars of the trade, which is pending league approval: The Knicks are receiving Anthony, Chauncey Billups, Shelden Williams, Renaldo Balkman and Anthony Carter from the Nuggets. Denver is acquiring Danilo Gallinari, Raymond Felton, Wilson Chandler, Timofey Mozgov, the Knicks’ 2014 first-round pick, two second-round picks and $3 million in cash. And the third team in the trade, Minnesota, is obtaining Eddy Curry’s expiring contract, Anthony Randolph and $3 million from New York for Corey Brewer.

No one is getting ripped off here, but no one, save perhaps the Timberwolves, comes away feeling untainted glee. That is the nature of a fair deal. Let’s take a look at it from all sides:

Denver Nuggets

People mocked Masai Ujiri, Denver’s rookie general manager, saying he was in over his head and had submarined the Nuggets by asking the Nets and Knicks to add just one more piece every time the deal seemed close to being done. But Ujiri has taken a franchise player who did not want to return to his team next season and flipped him for actual NBA assets with actual NBA value. That is a difficult trick the Raptors could not manage last season with Chris Bosh, a fine player who (unlike LeBron James) is nonetheless not worth the chance of losing for nothing (Toronto did end up getting two first-round picks and a trade exception in a July sign-and-trade deal with the Heat for its All-Star power forward).

Denver reportedly will hang on to the four Knicks players – earlier Monday, Gallinari and Mozgov were speculated to be New Jersey-bound in exchange for two first-round picks. The Nets possess a bunch of first-rounders: their own, plus picks from Houston, the Lakers and Golden State with various protections attached. (The value the Nuggets would have received in a theoretical Mozgov/Gallinari trade with Jersey would depend on which of those picks they got.)

But in Gallinari, Denver receives a 22-year-old who has proved to be both an accurate, high-volume three-point shooter and (this season) a guy capable of getting to the rim, finishing and drawing fouls. Repeat: He’s 22. And he plays a wing position that is suddenly available in Denver. Chandler, a pending restricted free agent, can fill the same positional void — though he plays a bit bigger than Gallinari – and perhaps the Nuggets will happily bring Chandler back and thus view Gallinari as expendable trade bait.

Mozgov is a project. Felton is a nice replacement for Billups at point guard, and his deal (like Billups’) expires after next season — should Denver even keep Felton for that long.

The most important thing: The Nuggets are saving an enormous amount of cash in this deal. By sending out Billups and Anthony without taking on Curry’s expiring deal, Denver trims its payroll for this season by about $18 million — and it could cut more if it continues to deal before Thursday’s trade deadline. But that alone will take the Nuggets under the luxury tax, meaning they won’t have to pay the dollar-for-dollar penalty and they’ll be eligible for the reimbursement non-tax-paying teams get in the summer. Quite a windfall.

New York Knicks

The inclusion of Mozgov doesn’t do much to change my initial appraisal of this deal from over the weekend. New York is paying a heavy price, but it’s not as heavy as the James Dolan haters — and they are justified in their hate, for sure — might have you believe. Chandler was likely leaving after this season for a large payday the Knicks wouldn’t provide. Mozgov is a project. Billups is at least Felton’s equal now, and Billups’ contract expires after next season. Only $3.7 million of his deal for next season is guaranteed, meaning his team can buy him out for that amount during a brief window after this season ends, according to ShamSports.

So in terms of long-term assets the Knicks are surrendering, you’re talking about three things:

1) Gallinari. That’s a significant loss, but New York might rightly believe that its current nucleus of players would never mature into a group capable of taking out Miami and Chicago. If that’s how the Knicks feel, taking a shot with Carmelo isn’t a bad move.

2) Mozgov and a 2014 first-rounder. Major unknowns, both.

3) Ephemeral possibility. Even if the Knicks weren’t especially high on Gallinari or Chandler or Mozgov, they could have kept these assets, watched them develop and flipped them for another disgruntled superstar who might have become available next season. You will hear this criticism in the next 24 hours, and it is not without merit. But it assumes much that is unknown about guys like Chris Paul, Dwight Howard and Deron Williams, and New York fans should know the dangers of assuming about the unknown after last summer. They know they can get ‘Melo now. And they are going for it.

Two other criticisms you are going to read soon:

1) The Knicks could have waited to sign Anthony as a free agent without giving up anything.

Again: Maybe. New York has about $43.5 million on its books for next season, and that’s before you factor in its first-round pick and small charges for empty roster spots. The current salary cap is $58 million, meaning the Knicks could have been able to offer Anthony the maximum — or close to it — under the current cap setup, assuming they could manage to unload some minor contracts here and there. That’s uncertain enough. The reality is even more uncertain. We have no idea what the league’s future salary structure will look like, where the cap will be set and whether the values of present and future contracts will change with the new bargaining agreement.

The Knicks might have been able to go the free-agent route. It is not possible to know now with 100 percent certainty.

2) With about $40 million tied up annually in just two players (Anthony and Amar’e Stoudemire), the Knicks have taken themselves out of the Howard/Paul/Williams 2012 free-agent derby.

Perhaps that’s true. We don’t know what the salary cap will be in 2012 (though it figures to be lower), and we don’t know what the sign-and-trade possibilities will be for New York in July 2012 — or whether trade rules will be broadened so that incoming and outgoing salaries won’t have to match quite as closely. The Knicks have certainly made the pursuit of those players more difficult today, but who knows what the CBA will look like in a year or whether any of those players will want to come to New York.

All three of those players are more valuable assets than Anthony. A debate about Anthony’s value belongs in another post — and already exists in this one and others — but New York fans should not delude themselves into thinking they are getting someone anywhere near the “top five players” conversation.

But they’re getting the best player in the deal — by far — and that is the important thing here.

New Jersey Nets

I’ll say this: If the Nets were actually going to part with Devin Harris, Derrick Favors and four (!) first-round picks, they should count themselves lucky that Dolan and Isiah Thomas love them some contested mid-range jumpers.

Minnesota Timberwolves

You can laugh at the Wolves all you want, and there has been much to laugh at. And even here, they are acquiring Randolph, a lanky, left-handed power forward with a perimeter skill set — the same general sort of player they swiped from Miami in the Michael Beasley deal last summer.

Randolph is, of course, a much different player — more potential to turn into an impact defender, but still all potential as the 21-year-old joins his third team in three seasons.

But Minnesota has at least turned its cap space into something: an intriguing young asset. And the price it paid is Brewer, a pending free agent who was not going to be in its long-term plans, anyway. Toss in $3 million from the Knicks to cover what’s left of Curry’s $11.3 million salary, and Minnesota has done well. Lots of teams either can’t or don’t want to turn their cap space (or trade exceptions) into anything tangible. Minnesota has at least taken a shot.