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Knicks Clean House: Patiently Wait for the Summer of LeBron

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Categorized as: Author: Patrick, Fantasy Basketball
Posted on: November 21st, 2008

As you may have heard, the Knicks made a couple trades today with a large eye on 2010:

In the first trade, the Knicks sent Jamal Crawford to the Golden State Warriors for Danny Walsh man-crush Al Harrington

The Knicks then sent Zach Randolph and Mardy Collins to the Clippers for Tim Thomas and Cuttino Mobley.

Here is my quick impression of the Knicks’ trades this afternoon because it’s Friday, I’m sick, and Terrance has already done a bang up review of the trades. I’ll probably have some more comments later, when my nose doesn’t feel like it’s going to explode.


I’d feel bad if I got traded for Al Harrington too

So, the Knicks trade their two top scorers for three players whose contracts expire in 2010. Hmmm, I wonder what their plan could be? But since its still 2008, here is what the Knicks rotation now looks like:

PG: Chris Duhon
SG: Cuttino Mobley
SF: Quentin Richardson
PF: Wilson Chandler
C: Al Harrington
Bench: Nate Robinson
Bench: David Lee

That’s the definition of going small. The Knicks have 40 points to replace in their starting lineup and Mobley and Harrington can do most of that, all be it in a less fantasy friendly way than Crawford and Randolph. Mobley probably won’t be going back to the days when he was scoring 20 points a game, but 15 with 1.5-2 threes a game seems very reasonable in that offense. Mobley is probably worth a pickup is he’s available in your league.

Harrington (and by extension his owners) comes out the big winner in the trade. He wasn’t playing in Golden State and now he’ll move into a starting role on the Knicks. If he gets the minutes – and a quick look at the Knicks roster suggests he will – then he should be able to score in the high teens while doing other Al Harrington type things, like hitting 1+ threes a game and going on hot and cold streaks that would make Andrei Kirilenko jealous.

The other Knicks don’t see all too much change from these trades. Nate Robinson might see a little bump in minutes and value. David Lee will never be a key cog in Mike D’Antoni’s system.

Crawford is a loser in the trade – not immediately – but in the long run when Monta Ellis returns. In the meantime, I guess he fills in at the point and continues to get his shot off. As Kelly Dwyer wrote, “So, the Warriors get another streaky shooter, one who can sop up minutes until Monta Ellis gets back, but it’s the same as it ever was. The Warriors have 14 guys like this, plus Andris Biedrins.”

I have no idea how Zach Randolph fits on the Clippers. Sure he can score on a team that needs a scorer, but doesn’t Chris Kaman pretty much do 85% of what Randolph does? I need to think about this one some more, but I don’t like the feeling it gives me.

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