After two years of slashing pay roll and getting under the cap, free agency finally arrived on July 1. The Knicks so far have been rewarded with news that it seems that LeBron will not be playing in Madison Square Garden come 2010-2011. Plan B? Well that is where once again the Knicks make a mistake in this horrid decade. Word came out that the Knicks have offered Amar'e Stoudemire 100 million dollars over 5 years to come to Gotham?
The perception is that Stoudemire is a force on the inerior and a freakish athlete. Certainly worth a max contract! WRONG!
In 2010 Amar'e was the 3rd most valuable player on his team in terms of Wins Produced with 8.6 and a WP48 of .146 (average being .100) The player that will no longer be employed by the New York Knicks, David Lee contributed 17.3 wins along with a .275 WP48 to the Knicks cause. So yes, this fits right in with the script of the past ten years, getting rid of star players who will come cheaper and replacing them with mac contract above average players.
Also, in addition the Knicks are rumored to be offering a max contract to the incredible talent Joe Johnson. Again, the Knicks are targeting the third best player on the team and offering a max contract. How did Joe Johnson do last year? A WP48 of .130 and 7.8 wins produced.
To project the Knicks with these two players I will do a three year regression with weights of 3/4/5 to represent the years.
Amar'e Stoudemire: 2500 Mins. .168 WP48 8.7 Wins
Joe Johnson: 3080 Mins. .110 WP48 7.1 Wins
The other players on the Knicks do not figure to do much with Danilo Gallinari and Toney Douglas being below average players in the early part of their careers. Eddy Curry should never appear on a basketball court again. Bill Walker did show some promise with the Knicks in his limited 729 mins. last year, however, posting a .129 WP48.
With the combo of Amar'e and Joe Johnson, if the play at expectation level, the Knicks can expect to accumulate 15.8 wins these two running the show. Or, in other words, the Knicks signed two players to maximum deals and collectively they will give the Knicks less than the player that they are letting walk away in David Lee.
Oh, the joy of being a Knick fan!!
1. In general, I'm a fan of David Lee.
ReplyDelete2. The Knicks did not replace David Lee with Anthony Randolph.
3. The Knicks replaced David Lee with Anthony Randolph, Rony Turiaf and Kelenna Azubuike.
4. When the "big fish" got away from Donnie Walsh this summer, he has done a decent job of implementing his 'Plane B'.
5. The Knicks should be a better team this season than they have been for the last several seasons ... which still isn't really saying very much, since they've been quite pathetic for a good while now ... based on Donnie Walsh's additions/subtractions.
Agreed, I wrote on this July 3. I am generally happy about about how the D-Lee trade happened
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