In fairness to the basketball expertise possessed by Jim Dolan, trading for a superstar usually works out great for the receiving team. The cliché in the NBA is, in fact, never trade away a superstar because you can’t get value.
The danger in analyzing trades that are not even a year old and involve key players in their 20s, however, is that change can occur unexpectedly.
That was the case in 1971 when the Baltimore Bullets sent sensational guard Earl Monroe to the Knicks for Mike Riordan and Dave Stallworth – two players who would average less than 10 points a game in their career.
Monroe was a key part of the 1973 Knicks championship team and the Bullets – who had won 57 games three years before and made it to the NBA Finals with Monroe and a 42-40 team in 1970-71 – won only 38 games.
Seven months after the Monroe trade, however, the Houston Rockets blessed the Bullets by sending Elvin Hayes to them in exchange for Jack Marin, a fine player but – unlike Hayes – far from one of the 50 Greatest Players in NBA history. Over the next seven years, the Bullets averaged 50 victories a season, made the NBA Finals three times and won the 1978 championship.
Thanks to Elvin, Earl the Pearl was not missed.
That is a positive story for Dolan and his New York Knicks, and they need anything positive right now because their monster deal for Carmelo Anthony has been a bust. The Knicks are 7-13 and rank 29th out of 30 teams in field goal percentage at .414. Despite Mike D’Antoni’s frenetic offense – celebrated in Jack McCallum’s book Seven Seconds or Less – the Knicks are only 17th in the NBA in scoring at 93.7 per game.
The problems have been well documented – two scorers in Anthony and Amaré Stoudemire, a great defender in Tyson Chandler, a modicum of potential in a couple of young players, and no point guard. Anthony leads the Knicks with 4.3 assists per game. The Knicks rank 25th in the league in assists. Last year they were 15th; the year before they were 12th.
When Steve Nash ran D’Antoni’s offense, it was a sleek, powerful locomotive. Now it’s the little engine that can’t.
Or as D’Antoni told reporters after a recent loss: “We are hesitating on everything and not really attacking. So far we don’t have a lifeline. Offensively, we are a wreck.”
That’s not exactly what Dolan had in mind when the Knicks traded six players and three draft picks in a three-team trade that brought Anthony and five others to New York – a trade that will likely result in D’Antoni losing his job. Yes, the Knicks gave up talent in Danilo Gallinari, Wilson Chandler, Timofey Mozgov and Raymond Felton but, historically, such trades have usually worked out for the team getting the great player.
Consider players who were among the 50 Greatest Players in NBA History and were part of blockbuster trades:
— The Milwaukee Bucks won the 1970-71 NBA title. In 1975, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar demanded to be traded. He went to the Lakers and was part of five championship teams. The Bucks have not appeared in the NBA Finals since.
— Wilt Chamberlain was traded twice. Each time, the team he went to won a title. The teams he left (the Warriors and Sixers) did not win a championship until a new generation of players came in a decade or more later.
— The Rockets did not re-sign Moses Malone in 1982 and went from 46 victories to 14. Malone joined a Philadelphia team with a great cast led by Julius Erving. The Sixers had been to the Finals three times in six years, but lost each time. With Malone, they won the 1982-83 title.
— The Lakers sent Shaquille O’Neal to the Heat in 2004 and went from a team that had been in four of the previous five NBA Finals and had won three titles to a team that won 34 games and missed the playoffs. It took two more years and a one-sided trade that landed Pau Gasol in Los Angeles to overcome the loss of O’Neal, who won a title in Miami in 2006.
— After a disappointing 35-win season in 1991-92, the Sixers traded Charles Barkley to Phoenix for three players — Jeff Hornacek, Tim Perry and Andrew Lang. Barkley’s relationship with Sixers management had soured, but Philadelphia settled for far too little in the deal. The Suns went to the Finals in Barkley’s first season but lost to Michael Jordan and the Bulls in the Finals. It took the Sixers a long time to recover – they missed the playoffs the next six seasons and averaged only 26 wins a year.
For Knicks fans looking for a sliver of hope, history provides it.
Despite losing Abdul-Jabbar, the Bucks built an entertaining team under Don Nelson. Milwaukee won 50 or more games seven times in the 1980s.
After Chamberlain left, the Warriors and Sixers did build teams that won titles.
The Rockets won two titles with Hakeem Olajuwon in the 1990s.
The Sixers eventually drafted Allen Iverson and also made it to the Finals before losing to O’Neal and Kobe Bryant.
And the Lakers won two titles after O’Neal was traded – but it is important to remember they had Bryant. Anthony and Stoudemire are not Bryant.
In all of those cases, however, the key element was time. And time is not a treasured commodity in New York, where the Knicks have made the playoffs only three times since 2001. They lost each of those series and the bottom line for the last 11 years is a playoff record of 2-11.
The record of bad management in some cases, bad luck in others and a desperation to be great quickly rather than patiently build have all worked against the Knicks. And thus far, so has the trade for a player reputed to be a superstar, but perhaps a notch short of the true greatness Mr. Dolan thought he was getting.
Jan Hubbard has written about basketball since 1976 and worked in the NBA league office for eight years in between media stints. Follow him on Twitter at @whyhub.
It’s really easy to criticize everybody and everything in hindsight. The fact is, we needed a bid, defensive center because Amare’s body was not going to be successful guarding opposing centers in the long run. Is it having a negative affect, of course. But, if you were a GM that had100% accuracy in predicting every move you make, people would still find reason to question you, because it’s the Knicks.
The issue now is what we do building/moving forward with what we have.
You are correct in stating it is easy to judge a GM’s moves in hindsight. And they do have difficult decisions to make when considering trades, signing FAs, and where to allocate $ under the cap. But considering that is the whole point of the column I think judgement is fair game. I’d love to comment on an article about what teams should do, and I will when I see that column.
Good luck the rest of the year with your Knicks, Amir.
Never been so happy to be a Nuggets fan! Absolutely love our “superstar-less” team!
It is pure folly to compare Melo to the top 50 players of all time. He is not anywhere close to that caliber. He is only a minor upgrade over Gallinari and the Italian is still improving.
I don’t think the problem is the players the Knicks gave up. Mozgov and Chandler are role players on a good team and not much more. Gallinari could develop into a fringe All-Star player, but he will never be the best player on a championship team, something Carmelo has the chance of doing.
The problem is the Knicks amnestied Billups and used that money on Tyson Chandler. In Billups they had a veteran PG who even though is still more of a shoot first PG, and even playing more SG with the Clippers, he still would have helped spread the ball around between Amare and Carmelo. But with him gone the ball sticks in either Carmelo’s or Amare’s hand and the offense just doesn’t work. Meanwhile in Chandler the Knicks have C who thrived more because of a team defense concept in Dallas where everyone there was finally buying in on defense. The Knicks lead by D’Antoni play terrible team defense, thus relying exclusively on Chandler to the one defensive stopper. Besides Dwight Howard no one guy can affect all five opposing players on offense, and Chandler is being exposed a little. Plus, $55 million for Chandler over 4 years? Could have waited a year and probably gotten an old Steve Nash and other pieces who could make the Knicks a more balanced team for the same $.
Chandler was overpaid and not really a good fit for this team, but I do think the Knicks gave up some good players (like Gallinari) that would have fit the team well had they picked up someone other than Carmelo to pair with Amare. Instead, they got Carmelo, didn’t do well, and then freaked out and spent a ton of money on Chandler, who also doesn’t really fit on the team. 3 “superstars” and a losing record, what a waste of money.